1901 - 2 .] Plague Research Laboratory of Government of India. 117 
process, and as this differs from the methods emp’oyed in European 
laboratories, it is necessary to describe it somewhat in detail. 
The necessity for this departure from established custom arose from 
a consideration of the religious prejudices of the natives of India, 
•certain articles such as beef and pork being abhorrent to the 
majority of them. How the peptone of commerce is derived from 
•one or other of these substances, and it could not in conse- 
quence be used to enrich the bouillon in the ordinary way. The 
Government of India therefore deputed the late Colonel Warden, 
Fig. 2. — Media-preparation Room. 
I.M.S., who was then the Chemical Examiner in Calcutta, to try 
to discover a method of making peptone from goats’ flesh, and the 
process now to be described, though not fundamentally novel, is 
the result of his labours, modified as experience dictated. The 
operations connected with this process are carried on in a spacious 
stoned-paved room on the ground floor, fitted up with eight large 
autoclaves (fig. 2). Lean goats’ flesh finely minced is the basis of 
the bouillon. The meat, placed in glass jars, has 80 c.c. of hydro- 
•chloric acid of the B.P. standard added to it for each kilo, and 
the jars are then immersed up to the neck in water at 70° C. 
