66 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
and forms on potato a shining white growth. There is no gas formed 
with glucose, but copious development with lactose and saccharose. 
Bacillus coli communis developed gas in all three media. Negative 
results were obtained from a micrococcus. 
All the four bacilli were mobile, and all produced an acid reaction 
of the medium. The gases produced were carbon dioxide and hydrogen. 
Abilities of certain pathogenic Microbes to maintain their exist- 
ence in Water.* — From the observations of Dr. E. Klein it seems that 
cholera bacteria can live in Thames water for at least 42 days, and 
that they are demonstrable therein for a longer period than the typhoid 
fever bacilli, which could not be found after 36 days. The foregoing 
results were obtained with natural Thames water ; but when the water 
was filtered and sterilised these bacteria survived for a longer period. 
Bacteriological Examination of Water for Coli Bacteria.f — Dr. E. 
von Freudenreich has made experiments for the purpose of ascertaining 
whether coli bacteria multiply with great rapidity in water. The 
specimens were cultivated in milk-sugar-bouillon, and then inoculated 
in sterilised and unsterilised water. The sources of both kinds of water 
were various. In series A (sterilised water) there was increase six out of 
seven times. In series B (unsterilised water) there was increase in ten, 
and decrease or absence in four cases. No definite conclusion appears 
to be possible from the as yet too few experiments, though they are 
sufficient to suggest that when water is to be examined for coli bacteria 
(by Parietti’s, the milk-sugar-bouillon, or any other method), the exami- 
nation should be made at once. 
Pathogenic Bacteria in Buried Bodies.}: — Prof. W. Losener has 
made some experiments with pathogenic bacteria relative to the time 
these organisms retain their vitality in buried corpses, and the dangers 
supposed to be incurred by contamination of the soil and the soil-water 
by these microbes. The method adopted was to insert the virus into 
pigs, which were wrapped up in linen cloths, placed in wooden coffins, 
and buried in a soil partly sandy, partly clayey. 
The bodies were infected by injecting into the axillary artery dilute 
cultures, or by inserting into the thoracic or abdominal cavity cotton- wool 
saturated with cultures, and even by inserting infectious viscera, such as 
tuberculous lungs or typhoid spleen. The bodies were buried at a depth 
of 1 J-2 metres ; they were only dug up once, and measures were taken 
for obtaining samples of the soil-water and the soil in their immediate 
vicinity after varying intervals of time. The microbes used were those 
of enteric fever, cholera, tuberculosis, tetanus, suppuration, and anthrax. 
It would seem that the typhoid germ may retain its vitality under the 
conditions mentioned for at least 96 days. The cholera vibrio was 
demonstrable up to the 28th day, but only in the fluid taken from the 
abdominal cavity wherein a cotton-wool plug had been inserted. The 
observations on tuberculosis were carried on for two years. In only two 
* Ann. Rep. Loc. Gov. Board, 1894-5. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Para- 
sitenk., l te Abt., xx. (1896) pp. 688-9. 
f Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., l t0 Abt., xx. (1896) pp. 522-7 ; also 
Ann. de Microgr., viii. (1896) pp. 415-23. 
X Arb. a. d. Kaiserl. Gesundheitsamte, xii. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Para- 
sitenk., l te Abt., xx. (1896) pp. 454-8. 
