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micro organisms upon life, from its humblest up to its highest 

 forms. M. Giard, a French naturalist, has recently made some 

 highly interesting experiments on the phosphorescence of various 

 Crustacea. This appearance has long been known to be an infec- 

 tious disease, but it Ins now been definitely traced by M. Giard to 

 the presence of bacteria in the muscles of the crustacean. He 

 inoculated several healthy specimens from one which was phos- 

 phorescent, and so quickly was the infection conveyed that his 

 laboratory was quite illuminated by these diseased specimens. The 

 disease was, moreover, continued in an unattenuated form through 

 five or six generations, each crustacean dying within three or four 

 days. The phosphorescence lingered some hours after death. 



The oral aperture of flies has been found to be swarming with 

 bacteria, which may account for the sometimes poisonous effects 

 ot their bite. Indeed micro-organisms abound everywhere and in 

 the most unsuspected places. A Russian scientist lately discovered 

 that even hailstones are teeming with them, and that their number 

 averages no less than twenty-one thousand to every cubic centi- 

 metre. 



M. Pasteur continues with unabated zeal his valuable experiments 

 for the prevention and cure of disease, but no fresh discovery of 

 special importance was recorded by him last year 



In various places investigations are going forward as the cause 

 of that terrible disease, leprosy, of which we have heard so much 

 lately. Although a specific form of bacillus is said to be found in 

 leprous subjects, yet its method of propagation is still unknown. 

 A fund is, however, being raised in this country to found scholar- 

 ships for two students, one of whom will make Europe and the 

 other India and the Colonies the field of his research, and it is 

 hoped that this may lead to a better understanding, and conse- 

 quently better treatment of this dread malady. 



The fashionable complaint of influenza may also probably be 

 attributed to the chemical action set up in the system by some 

 specific form of bacillus. Indeed two doctors in Vienna, Professor 

 Weichselbaum and Dr. Jolles, claim severally to have found the 

 genuine influenza bacillus, which they describe as closely resem- 

 bling the pneumonia coccus discovered by Dr. Fricdlander. In this 

 country one gentleman claims to have found it by sending up into 

 the air a kite, spread with a layer of treacle, which became covered 

 with a prickly hedgehog-like coating of microscopic ore:anisms, 

 which l.e believes to be the veritable influenza bacilli. Dr. Symes 

 Thompson, in his recent interesting lectures on the subject, says 

 that a similar epidemic is described by Homer, and that in this 

 country its first recorded appearance was in 1173, and several out- 

 breaks seem to have occurred during each century since the 14th 



