658 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Bacillus Pseudanthracis.* — Herr W. Wahrlich describes a new 
bacillus which, from its resemblance to that of anthrax, he calls pseud- 
anthracis. Its development was studied in meat-pepton-agar, meat- 
pepton-gelatin, and potato. 
The spores, 0 • 6 p, broad and 1 • 3-1 • 8 p. long, germinate in about 
3 hours, forming filaments 1-1 • 15 p, broad. The growth increased till 
the seventh day, when the contents of the filaments began to be granular, 
and by the fourteenth most of them were dead, and empty cases and no 
spores were formed. Spore-formation was obtained by cultivating in test- 
tubes on meat-pepton-agar. On plate cultivations with meat-pepton- 
gelatin the colonies were 3-4 mm. broad by the fourth day and the 
gelatin was liquefied. 
Some of the diagnostic criteria between the true and pseudanthrax 
are enumerated, e. g. the ends of the cells are rounder and the spores cylin- 
droidal rather than oval ; the scum forming on liquefied gelatin does not 
sink of itself, but only after shaking, and the scum forms anew on the 
surface of the culture. 
Only one animal, a mouse, was submitted to inoculation. This died 
five days after injection, and did not present the post-mortem appearances 
characteristic of anthrax. 
Two new Microbes of Stringy Milk.f — The researches of the past 
few years have, says Prof. A. Guillebeau, determined that the viscosity 
of milk may be produced by at least fourteen different micro-organisms ; 
to these the author now adds two more, M. Freudenreichii and Bad. 
Hessii. 
The milk of a particular dairyman at Berne from time to time 
became stringy, this condition being accompanied by a disagreeable 
odour. In this milk was found a large motionless coccus. It is alike 
aerobic and anaerobic, sometimes forms chains, and grows easily in the 
usual nutritive media. Bouillon becomes slightly stringy, and gelatin, 
first liquefied, markedly so. On potato the cultivations were of a pale 
yellow to a yellowish-brown colour, and on this medium the diameter of 
the cocci was as much as 2 p,. 
Sterilized milk becomes so viscous that threads of 5 dm. to 1 m. 
long can be drawn out. In non-sterilized milk kept at 20°, the viscosity 
is perceptible 5 hours after inoculation, soon afterwards the liquid turns 
bitter, and in a few days the casein is precipitated as a fine granular 
deposit. The coccus seems to grow as well on acid as on neutralized 
media, but is not so large. The optimum temperature is 20° but the 
coccus will grow at from 12°-35°. It retains its vitality and energy for 
many months. From an experiment made by injecting the udder of a 
goat with 5 grm. of a bouillon cultivation, it appeared that the coccus 
could not only exist in the animal organism but set up the viscous 
condition. 
B. Hessii was accidentally discovered on a cow feeding on the Alps 
at 1200 m. high; cultivated on potato it measures 3-5 p, long by 
1 • 2 p broad. The ends are rounded and stain more deeply than the 
middle. It is extremely mobile. Gelatin is liquefied and bouillon 
* S.A. aus Scripta Botanica, 1890-1, 30 pp. (3 pis.). See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. 
u. Parasitenk., xi. (1892) pp. 52 -3. f Annales de M^crogr., iv. (1892) pp. 225-37. 
