1901-2.] Plague Research Laboratory of Government of India. 121 
these trial flasks to the £ ballons Pasteur ’ which are used for 
sowing the large fermentation flasks. 
This operation is performed in what was originally the chancel 
of the Portuguese church, and the flasks when sown are at once 
removed to the body of the church, which, for the past hundred 
years, has served as the Governor’s banqueting-hall. This splendid 
hall, measuring some eighty feet in length, is now furnished with 
six rows of stout teak- wood tables running lengthways down the 
room. Each row of tables serves to accommodate three rows of 
Fig. 4. — The Incubation Room. 
the large 4-litre flasks. The view which I now show you was taken 
a few days before the visit of H.E. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy 
of India, on the 8th of November 1899. At this time there 
were in the room 1238 flasks, containing 2058 litres of bouillon 
sown with plague bacilli, the weight of the fluid amounting to over 
two tons. If we suppose that all these flasks ultimately reached the 
decanting room, their contents would furnish 411,600 adult doses of 
vaccine. The newly-sown flasks remain in this room for six weeks 
at a temperature of 26’6° C. (80° F.). For a few months in the 
cold weather the hall has to be heated by gas stoves, but as a rule 
this is not necessary. During this six-weeks period the flasks are 
