ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
429 
The optimum temperature is about 37°, and in bouillon it forms a 
pellicle on the surface of the medium. 
The existence of this microbe affords some support to the notion 
that calculi may have a microbic origin. 
Fate of the Tetanus Toxin.* — Dr. A. Marie, after pointing out that 
if tetanus toxin be injected into a vein it requires a dose 7 or 8 times 
greater to kill an animal than if injected under the skin, explains that 
this toxin is easily and effectively carried to the central nervous system 
along nerve-paths. If injected directly into the circulation, the poison 
is materially altered by the cells and plasma of the blood. Experi- 
ments made for the purpose of discovering what becomes of tetanus 
toxin, show that the toxin, when injected into animals, remains in their 
blood for a variable time, and when the time is past, inoculations from 
the organs and from secretions of glands do not excite tetanus. The 
author mentions that frogs were easily tetanised during winter when the 
water oscillated between 18° and 18° C., by injecting the toxin or 
cultures. With 0*5 milligram, the symptoms appear between the 
18th and 25th day, and with 6 milligrams on the 9th to 15th day. 
Staphylococcus hsemorrhagicus.-f — Dr. E. Klein describes a coccus 
pathogenic to man and animals, isolated from a vesicular eruption, on 
the hands of persons who had been skinning sheep dead of “ gargle ” a few 
days after lambing. The coccus belongs to the group which comprises 
Stapli. pyogenes aureus ; it is 0 • 4-0 • 6 //, in diameter, and grows freely on 
all the ordinary media. It slowly liquefies gelatin, and coagulates milk 
in about a week. Alkaline broth rapidly becomes turbid, aud its reac- 
tion acid in from 2 to 4 days. On agar and gelatin the growth is whitish, 
becoming somewhat yellow with age and increasing size. Cultures of 
this coccus -were virulent to guinea-pigs and sheep, the chief morbid 
phenomena being a haemorrhagic oedema of the subcutaneous and mus- 
cular tissues, and the presence of sanguinolent fluid in the peritoneal sac. 
Inoculations of the agar culture which proved fatal to sheep gave 
positive results on the author’s hand. 
Nitroso-Bacterium with new Growth-Form.:-: — Dr. W. Kullmann 
describes a nitrite-forming bacterium which, cultivated on nitrite-agar, 
presents itself as thick, anisodiametric rodlets. It is devoid of move- 
ment and of flagella. 
Nitroso-hacterium foi'mse novse, when grown on gelatin, develops 
into filaments of greater or less length. The individual links are short 
rodlets with very marked polar staining, and much the same size as 
when grown on agar. If transferred to nitrite-agar or to liquid inor- 
ganic media, there appeared in the course of a few days forms exhibiting 
simple and branched processes. When retransferred to ordinary media 
the rodlet shapes reappeared. The processes, after an incubation period 
of four days at 37°, were observed to develop from one pole, the other 
pole becoming expanded or bulbous. At 22° the processes appeared on 
the sixth day. On the solid medium the processes were simple, in the 
liquid nutrient inorganic fluid only were they branched. That these 
* Arm. Inst. Pasteur, xi. (1897) pp. 591-9. 
t Brit. Med. Journ., 1897, ii. pp. 385-7. 
X Centralbl. Bakt. u. Par., 2 te Abt., iii. (1897) pp. 228-31 (1 fig.). 
