574 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
culture, showing that the fat in the tubercle bacillus cannot be entirely 
extracted by ether or alcohol. But if the culture, before being treated 
with osmic acid, is boiled in alcohol, ether, or a mixture of the two, 
then the culture thus treated is not black but brownish-yellow or clay- 
coloured. As the brownish hue is very much alike for all the extraction 
media, it is probably due to staining of the protoplasm, and not to un- 
extracted fatty residua. 
Barbone Disease of Cattle and Pigs.* — Dr. F. Sanfelice, Dr. L. Loi, 
and Dr. Y. E. Malato have discovered that the barbone disease exists in 
Sardinia, where cattle and pigs are affected. The disease belongs to the 
class of haemorrhagic septicaemias, and was first described by Oreste and 
Armanni in 1886. Italian buffaloes are very liable to this disorder, 
which is caused by a specific micro-organism readily to be found in the 
inflammatory exudation in the neck and in the nasal mucus. In form 
and staining reaction it resembles Bacillus cholerse gallinarum , but is 
distinguishable therefrom in that it is invariably pathogenic to guinea- 
pigs, while the fowl-cholera microbe is only occasionally fatal. It also 
has certain features in common with the bacillus of the septicasmia of 
cattle and with Bacillus suis septicus. 
Pseudomonas campestris (Pammel).t — Dr. D. F. Smith gives a con- 
venient summary of his account of Pseudomonas campestris , a micro- 
organism described by Prof. L. H. Pammel in a paper entitled c Bac- 
teriosis of Rutabaga ( Bacillus campestris , sp. n.).’ Pseudomonas campes- 
tris is a yellow rod-shaped motile micro-organism, varying in size and 
colour according to substratum, food-supply, &c. Generally it measures 
0* 7-3*0 p by 0*4-0 *5 p. In colour it varies from dull wax-yellow to 
canary-yellow, though occasionally it is as bright as light cadmium or 
as pale as primrose-yellow. It has one polar flagellum, and, as far as is 
known, does not form spores. It is pathogenic to various cruciferous 
plants, entering and dwarfing or destroying the host plant through the 
vascular system, which becomes decidedly brown. It is aerobic, but 
does not produce gas or acid. It forms cavities around the bundles, but 
seems to be only feebly destructive to cellulose. It produces a brown 
pigment in the t host plants and on steamed cruciferous substrata, espe- 
cially the turnip. It grows very rapidly on steamed potato at room 
temperature, but without odour or the formation of pigment. It liquefies 
gelatin. It grows feebly at from 7-10°, luxuriantly at from 21-26°, 
feebly at 37-38°, and not at all at 40°. It is killed by ten minutes’ ex- 
posure to 51°. 
Report of the German Commission on the Foot and Mouth 
Disease. :f — Prof. Loeffler and Prof. Frosch, who formed the commission 
for the investigation of the foot and mouth disease, have issued a sum- 
mary of their report. They find that the disease is not bacterial in 
origin, for bacteria-free lymph is able to produce the typical disease. 
In such lymph certain morphotic elements are present ; though whether 
these are protozoic or not it would be at present premature to declare 
definitely. Cattle and pigs are specially sensitive to experimental 
infection. The most effectual method of infection is to inject some of 
* Centralb]. Baht. u. Par., l te Abt., xxii. (1897) pp. 33-42. 
t Op. cit., 2 le Abt., iii. (1897) pp. 284-91, 408-15, 478-86 (1 pi.). 
i Op. cit., l ,e Abt., xxii. (1897) pp. 257-9. 
