ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
243 
This view is supported by the fact that incipient branches may be 
observed not unfrequently in samples from sputa or cavity contents. 
More rarely there are definite threads or hyphae, which exhibit true 
branching, and often contain one or two spores, forming oval, highly 
refracting, deeply stained swellings on the course of the filaments. 
These spores have a close resemblance to chlamydospores, and are not 
to be confounded with the unstained intervals in the common rodlet, and 
described by Koch and others as spores. These spaces are really the 
result of plasmolysis. Old cultures, examined as sections, do not show 
separated rodlike forms isolated from one another, and lying at all 
angles, but strands of parallel filaments frequently exhibiting dichoto- 
mous branching. 
Influence of certain Yeasts in Destroying the Vitality of the 
Typhoid and Colon Bacilli.* — Dr. J. S. Billings and Dr. Adelaide W. 
Beckham made a series of researches upon the influence of light, of 
desiccation, and of the products of certain micro-organisms, upon the 
vitality of the typhoid and colon bacilli. Insolation of plate cultures 
was found to destroy all the germs in from three to six hours, while 
diffuse daylight, gaslight, or electric light, produced little or no effect. 
Bouillon tubes inclosed in coloured glass tubes showed an increase up to 
the eighteenth day, after which the numbers began to decrease. Inso- 
lation not only affects pathogenic bacteria, but also the culture media, 
so that they become less capable of supporting the growth of these 
organisms after periods of insolation varying from 1 to 60 days. 
Desiccation experiments showed that these organisms retained their 
vitality for at least five months. Further researches made to ascertain 
the influence of the common water bacteria or their products upon the 
vitality of the typhoid and colon bacilli showed that this influence was 
practically nil. 
Bacillus of Friedlaender in Tonsillitis and Pharyngitis.f — Mr. 
W. C. C. Pakes has found the pneumobacillus in five cases out of 500 
examinations of patients suffering from tonsillitis and pharyngitis. The 
morphological characters were, non-motility, polymorphism, decolora- 
tion by Gram’s method, presence of a capsule. Cultures on gelatin, agar, 
blood-serum, and in bouillon were characteristic ; the gelatin was not 
liquefied, gas production in glucose-gelatin, formation of acid in lactose 
bouillon, coagulation of milk with acid reaction, were exhibited. Mice 
inoculated with cultures died, the typical bacillus being found in the 
heart-blood and in the spleen. 
Bacterium coli anindolicum and Bacterium coli anaerogenes.J 
— Herr W. Lembke reports on two bacteria isolated from dog’s faeces, 
which, in their appearance and growth-characters, resembled B. coli 
commune , and differed therefrom in that the one forms no indol, and the 
other produces no gas in media containing grape-sugar. The growth of 
the two differed on gelatin, potato, and in bouillon. Their length was 
0*002 mm. and their breadth 0*001 mm. They were mostly in pairs, 
* Smithsonian Report for 1894 (1896) pp. 451-8. 
t Brit. Med. Journ., 1897, i. p. 715. 
j Arch. f. Hygiene, xxvii. pt. 4. See Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., l te Abt., xxi. 
<1897) pp. 281-2. 
