900 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
0*5 grm. carmine, 20 ccm. absolute alcohol, and 30 drops of hydro- 
chloric acid, which is heated for thirty minutes in a water-bath, when 
25 grm. chloral hydrate are added. This solution, filtered after cooling, 
stains the nuclei of pollen-grains in ten minutes an intense red. It can 
be used also for the nuclei of pollen-tubes grown on gelatin, since it 
liquefies that substance. 
Sterilization of Drugs for Hypodermic Use.* — Sig. D. Marinucci 
has found that many hypodermic solutions, such as freshly prepared 1/2-1 
per cent, strychnine sulphate, curara, eserin, atropin sulphate, hydro- 
chlorate of morphine, and 100 per cent, quinine chlorate were examined 
by bacteriological methods, and found to contain a greater or less (but 
always considerable) number of living germs which apparently are not 
all of a harmless nature. 
Solutions sterilized by means of heat and non-sterilized solutions were 
injected into rabbits and white rats, and in some cases frogs and mice. 
The experiments showed that the therapeutic value of strychnine, 
curara, quinine, and eserin were unaffected after sterilization by heat. 
The action of morphine and atropine was diminished by heat sterilizing 
and, therefore, the dose should be increased if the solution have been 
sterilized. Eserin was completely altered. The solutions of eserin and 
atropin were best sterilized by preparing them with a 1 : 1000 sublimate 
solution, by which their therapeutic properties were unaffected. It 
would be better however to renew the solutions every fourteen days, 
although they will keep for a long time. The author was unable to hit 
upon any practical method for sterilizing morphine without damaging its 
therapeutic action. 
New Method for Staining Microscopical Preparations.! — Dr. W. 
Swiatecki describes a device for staining microscopical preparations, 
which is said to be both practical and satisfactory. It merely consists 
in covering the preparation with filter-paper soaked in the staining 
solution. The procedure is suitable to dried layers of fluid and to 
sections. It is carried out on a slide in preference to cover-glasses. 
The filter-paper should be not quite as big as the slide, and to this 
when applied in one or more layers the staining fluid is dropped on. 
When it has acted for a sufficient length of time it is washed off, and 
the layer or section treated in the usual manner, either for decoloration, 
for counter-staining, or for dehydration. 
It is almost unnecessary to remark that when a layer of fluid, e. g. 
sputum, is made on a slide, the superficial extent of the layer needs 
several cover-glasses. 
Simple Method for Staining Tubercle Bacilli in Sputum. :f — Dr. P. 
Kaufmann uses boiling water as the decolorizing agent instead of acid, 
and his method is as follows : — 
The sputum is dried on the cover-glass and then fixed in alcohol or 
over the flame, after which it is stained in the usual manner with phenol- 
fuchsin. The cover-glass is next waved about in boiling water for 1J to 
* La Kiforma Med., 1891, p. 805. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., 
xii. (1892) pp. 282-3. 
t Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. (1892) pp. 247-9. 
j Tom. cit., pp. 142-3. 
