ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
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smelling pus, in which were rodlets 7-10/4 long and 0*75 /i broad. 
They were best stained with Loeffier’s methylen-blue solution. 
The bacteria grew best anaerobically between 36° and 38° C. in 
10 per cent, gelatin, or in grape-sugar bouillon. 
The cultivation gave off the same foul smell as was perceived in the 
pleural secretion. Inoculation experiments were for the most part a 
failure, although abscesses were sometimes found at the inoculation spot. 
The method by which the author cultivated this anaerobic bacillus 
was very simple. A test-tube filled obliquely with Loeffler’s blood- 
serum, having had the condensation water poured off, was inoculated, 
and then inverted over a stream of hydrogen gas from 1/2-1 minute. 
The mouth of the tube was then quickly closed with a caoutchouc 
plug, then smeared with paraffin, and the tube left upside down. This 
method is not only simple, but quite successful for anaerobic cultivations. 
Action of Reducing Agents on Anaerobic Bacteria.* — Messrs. S. 
Kitasato and Th. Weyl have examined the action of certain reducing 
agents on the growth of anaerobic bacteria by the bacilli of symptomatic 
anthrax, tetanus, and malignant oedema. Some of the reagents acted 
inhibitively ; such were the hydrochlorate of hydroxylamin and of phenyl- 
hydrazin ; and in a less degree chinon, acetaldehyd, and benzaldehyd. 
Others, such as resorcin, hydrochinin, eikonogen, and formate of soda, 
promoted growth ; but the most active was one per cent, of sulpli- 
indigotate of soda when added to the agar medium. As the culture 
increases the agar becomes decolorized, but on treating it with oxygen 
the blue colour returns ; hence the growth produces the decoloration of a 
reducing process, and the authors therefore think they have hit upon a 
means of demonstrating reduction processes when they occur during the 
development of micro-organisms. Experiments with aerobic bacteria 
(typhus, cholera, anthrax) showed that they reduced either very little or 
not at all. 
Spore-formation in Anthrax.j — Herr K. B. Lehmann has been 
able to controvert the widely accepted view about spore-formation in 
anthrax, from experiments made for the special purpose of demonstrating 
whether spore-formation were affected for the better or worse by ex- 
hausted cultivation media. The doctrine that anthrax required de- 
fective nutriment for spore-formation was first promulgated by Buchner, 
and accepted by all succeeding writers on his ipse dixit. The author 
finds that the contrary is really the case, and that spore-formation takes 
place far more luxuriantly and favourably on rich and unexhausted media 
than when the medium is poor or worn out. The experiments were made 
in two series. In the first, anthrax bacilli were cultivated on media the 
composition of which varied in nutrient quality, and in the second they 
were cultivated on media which had been previously used for growing 
anthrax. Such media were sterilized, neutralized, and the evaporation- 
water replaced. 
Herr H. Buchner J replies to the strictures of Lehmann by pointing 
out that the latter has quite misrepresented his views as to the cause of 
* Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, viii. p. 41. See Zeitschr. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., 
viii. (1890) pp. 12-3. f SB. Physik.-Med. Gesell. Wurzburg, 1890, pp. 34-7. 
I Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., viii. (1890) pp. 1-6. 
