154 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI., No. 133 



It is claimed that the cost of lighting the cars by 

 the incandescent lamp compares favorably with that 

 of lighting by compressed gas. During the heavy 

 storms whicli prevailed during tlie first week of 

 August, forty-eiglit cells of these storage batteries 

 did the work on a telegraph-line wliich five hundred 

 gravity-cells failed to accomplish. 



CHLOROFORM AS AN ANAESTHETIC. 



Experiments have shown that the vapor of thirty 

 grams of chloroform, mixed with a liundred litres of 

 air, will kill a dog in a few minutes ; while a dose 

 three times as strong, if diluted with a cubic metre 

 of air, produces a sleep with<mt danger, lasting two 

 liours. The tension of tlie vapor, ratlier tlian the 

 quantity, determines the effect; but the operator, in 

 administering tlie anaesthetic, has to take into ac- 

 count the quantity: so that, under apparently the 

 same conditions, very different results are obtained; 

 and hence arises the difference of opinion among 

 surgeons as to its use. Six grams in a liundred litres 

 of air have very little effect upon a dog ; ten grams 

 produce insensibility for an hour and a half ; while 

 fourteen grams cause death in forty-five minutes, 

 and twenty grams in five minutes. In the case of 

 man, with an inspiration of half a litre, these results 

 are produced by three, five, seven, and ten centi- 

 grams of chloroform respectively. It will be seen 

 that the difference between the harmless and the 

 dangerous proportions is very slight. Accordingly, 

 the use of chloroform has always been considered 

 dangerous; and, in order to make it less so, Mr. 

 Paul Bert has made experiments upon animals, and 

 afterwards applied them to man. His experiments 

 with man have extended over two hundred cases, in- 

 cluding patients of all kinds of temperaments, with 

 always the same result. He uses ten grams of chloro- 

 form vaporized in a hundred litres of air, — a dose 

 agreeable to some, and to none disagreeable. The 

 most disagreeable effects of the anaesthetic have al- 

 ways been felt in the period of repulsion; but Mr. 

 Bert almost entirely removes this. The period of 

 excitement is not great, and only lasts from one to 

 two minutes; while in the case of more than one- 

 third of the adults it is entirely absent. The pulse 

 is a little accelerated during the period of excitement, 

 but remains perfectly normal and regular during 

 sleep. Complete insensibility is produced in from 

 six to eight minutes, and is maintained during the 

 whole time of respiration. After the patient becomes 

 insensible, the quantity of chloroform is reduced to 

 eight grams, and later to six. Painful operations 

 have no effect, except that the respiratory movements 

 are slightly accelerated. There is no nauseation, and 

 the amount of chloroform administered is not enough 

 to cause poisoning; while there is no fear of asphyxia, 

 for the amount of oxygen is reduced only by a hun- 

 dredth. Indeed, with the exception of cerebral con- 

 gestion and faintings, none of the ordinary dangers 

 need be feared. 



rondonsed from La nature. 



VAN ERMENGEM ON THE CHOLERA 

 MICROBE. 



Some months ago we spoke of Van Ermen- 

 gem's results in investigating the cliolera bacil- 

 lus, and promised to refer to them again. His 

 completed report, as presented to the Belgian 

 minister of the interior, with additions in the 

 wa}^ of notes and plates, makes a volume of 

 some three hundred and sixty pages. As it 

 is the most complete summary' 3^et published 

 of this much-vexed question — the relation of 

 Koch's comma bacillus to cholera — we have 

 thought it worth more than a passing notice. 

 Commissioned by the government. Dr. Van 

 Ermengem obtained material, and made obser- 

 vations upon the bacillus in Paris, Berlin, Mar- 

 seilles, during the epidemic of the last year, 

 and in his own laboratory at Brussels. 



The report is divided into three sections, 

 the first of which treats of his expedition to 

 Paris, Berlin, and Marseilles, and the work 

 which he did there ; the second gives the 

 results of his investigations ; and in the third 

 he discusses the consequences of this discovery 

 of the comma bacillus. 



First visiting Paris, the author saw Dr. 

 Roux in Pasteur's laborator}^ and obtained 

 specimens from him, prepared under Koch's 

 supervision at Toulon ; from this place he went 

 to Marseilles, where he was able to work with 

 Nicati and Rietsch, and pursued his inves- 

 tigations until he was certain of the constant 

 occurrence of the curved bacillus in Asiatic 

 cholera, and until he had obtained sufficient 

 material with which to pursue the stud}' of the 

 mici'o-organism in his own laboratory. To 

 make doubly sure that he was working with 

 the right thing, he went to Berlin, and showed 

 his cultures and microscopic preparations to 

 Koch himself. 



The morphology of the cholera microbe is 

 most exhaustively treated. Its curved shape 

 is, of course, its most striking characteristic; 

 and the author declares his belief that no other 

 organism possessing all its peculiarities has 

 been found. The method of preparation for 

 the microscope is the usual one of Weigert 

 Koch, and the organisms seem to have no 

 special afSnit}' for any coloring-material. 

 Gram's method gives good results ; and, in 

 sections, the author prefers watery solutions of 

 methylene blue, or methyl violet 5 B. Left in 

 either of these solutions for from one to two 



Reche.rches sur le microhe. du cholera Asiatique. Rapport 

 presente a M. le miniptre de I'interieur le 3 novembre, 1884. Par 

 le Dr. E. Van Ermengem, aiigmente de nombreuses notes et 

 orne de douze planches photographiques, reproduisant vingt- 

 quatreraicrophotographies originales. l^aris, Bruxelles, ISBb. 8". 



