February 6, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



Ill 



prising that at the outset Koch spoke of the 

 swarms of rods, straight or slightly curved, 

 which he found in the intestines of cholera 

 patients as bacilli ; and, indeed, the fact that 

 these rods were capable of developing into 

 spiral filaments could only be determined by 

 protracted observations and by making pure 

 cultures. It seems to me that some of Koch's 

 critics, and especially Ray Lankester (see his 

 paper in Nature, Dec. 25, 1884), are making 

 altogether too much of this very pardonable 

 mistake, which has no special bearing upon 



Fig. 



1.— Comma bacillus (Koch) 

 x 2,500 diameters. 



the real question at issue, and cannot weaken 

 our confidence in the candor and scientific ac- 

 curacy of a man to whom we are so deeply 

 indebted, and whose scientific reputation is 

 established upon a firm foundation. 



Ray Lankester is unquestionably right when 

 he says that our knowledge of the bacteria is 

 still in its infanc} T ; but, so far as this knowl- 

 edge goes, it is doubtful whether any man living 

 can speak with more authority than can the 

 discoverer of the tubercle bacillus. 



The amplification in the figures illustrating 

 this paper is exactly twentj'-five hundred diame- 

 ters, and was obtained with admirable defini- 

 tion by the use of Zeiss 's one-eighteenth inch 

 homogeneous immersion objective upon a Pow- 

 ell and Lealand's large stand, with a high eye- 

 piece, and the draw-tube extended one inch. 

 The measurement was made by projecting the 

 lines from a standard stage-micrometer, ruled 

 by Professor Rogers of Cambridge, Mass., upon 

 a sheet of paper in the exact position in which 

 the drawing was made, by means of the same 

 objective, e} T e-piece, and camera lucida. Fig. 

 2 was made in the same way, and represents 

 curved bacilli, which resemble the ' comma 

 bacillus,' and which are, perhaps, identical 

 with those described by Prof. T. R. Lewis as 

 found in the healthy human mouth. The spe- 



cimen from which the drawing was made was 

 one of sputum from a patient with pneumonia. 

 I think it hardly necessary to insist that the 

 bacilli in fig. 2 are not morphologically iden- 

 tical with the ' comma bacillus ' of Koch as 

 shown in fig. 1 ; and I may say here, that, 

 during my somewhat extended bacteriological 

 studies, I have never encountered an organism 

 which seems to me to be identical with that seen 

 in the slide above referred to. Should such an 

 organism be found, it would not in the least 

 weaken the experimental evidence relating to 



Fig. 2. — Bacilli found in pneumonic sputum 

 x 2,500 diameters. 



the specific pathogenic power claimed for this 

 spirillum. But we must insist, in any case, that 

 this experimental evidence shall meet the most 

 rigid exactions of science. Certainty, Koch 

 fully appreciates this, and is doing his utmost 

 to comply with the conditions which he has im- 

 posed upon himself. We are therefore not able 

 to sympathize with the captious spirit of some 

 of his critics. Nor, in the absence of a detailed 

 report, are we prepared to admit that the Eng- 

 lish cholera commission has definitely settled 

 the question as to the etiological role of the 

 ' comma bacillus ' during the comparatively 

 brief time which has been devoted to the in- 

 vestigation ; and, in view of the contradictory 

 testimony now before us, we cannot do other- 

 wise than consider the question still sub judice, 

 and wait patiently for detailed reports and ad- 

 ditional experimental evidence. 



George M. Sternberg, 



Surgeon U. S. army. 



LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINANTS. 



A parliamentary document is not the place 

 where one would naturally look for facts of scientific 

 value : but, in a return published by the English house 

 of commons on the 11th of December last, there is 



