ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
655 
cultures to heat, a droplet was mixed with liquid gelatin and kept at the 
desired temperature in a water-bath. The gelatin was afterwards made 
into Esmarch’s plates. 
From his experiments the author concludes : — (1) that there is no 
difference between young and old cultures, in respect to their resistance 
to heat and drying. (2) The length of time required to kill by desicca- 
tion depends on the way in which the material has been prepared, the 
silk threads being more resistant than the glass slides. (3) The nature 
of the cultivation exercises considerable influence, and threads dried 
over acid are more resistant than those dried in the air. (4) Different 
cultivations did not contribute any appreciable difference for tem- 
peratures between 50° and 60°. (5) The contradictions between authors 
relative to this resistance are easily explicable by the differences in the 
way in which desiccation has been effected ; the more complete and rapid 
it has been, the more quickly the bacteria die. 
Microbes of Hsemoglobinuria of Ox.* — This disease, says M. V. 
Babes, is an acute febrile disorder, endemic in certain marshy districts 
of Roumania, and is characterized by haemoglobinuric urine and the 
presence of a microbe within the red corpuscles. 
These microbes vary somewhat in appearance. In the living un- 
stained condition they are seen as round pale spots about 1 /x in diameter, 
lying within the red corpuscles. When stained with a weak solution of 
violet B, they look like coloured globules 0 * 5-1 * 5 /x in diameter, often 
with a division line across their centre, sometimes like the figure 8. In 
this living condition their outline is ill defined. When dried and 
stained they are smaller, while their contour becomes strictly defined 
and stains well. 
Cultivations on artificial media produced colonies which showed 
under the Microscope cocci and diplococci, surrounded by a less colourable 
zone, this reproducing an appearance similar to that found in the blood. 
But the vitality and the pathogenic properties of the microbes developed 
artificially were soon lost. 
From the author’s remarks it is to be inferred, though it is not quite 
clear, that inoculation experiments were made, and that the symptoms of 
the disease and the suspected organism were reproduced. 
Putrefaction Ptomaine obtained from cultivations of Bacterium 
Allii.t — The microbe, discovered by Mr. A. B. Griffiths, is from 5 to 7 /x 
long and 2 • 5 /x broad. It was found on rotten onions, upon which, as 
well as on gelatin, it produces a green pigment. This pigment, when 
dissolved in alcohol, gives an absorption band extending from the extreme 
violet to the blue, and also bands in the green and yellow. The end of the 
band in yellow is exactly in the same position as D in the solar spectrum. 
Allowed to grow for several days on peptonized agar, Bacterium Allii 
produces a ptomaine, which was extracted by the methods of Gautier 
and Brieger. It is a white solid body soluble in hot water, alcohol, 
ether, and chloroform. It crystallizes in microscopic needles belonging 
to the prismatic system. These crystals are extremely deliquescent and 
have the odour of Mayflower, especially when heated. 
Comptes Rendus, cx. (1890) pp. 800-2. 
t T. e., pp. 416-8. 
