92 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
From the bacillus of malignant oedema it is distinguished by being 
longer and thicker. Its movements are less lively, and it does not form 
spores. Very long (giant) flagella are more frequent. In bouillon 
cultures it often forms commas, and also short twisted filaments con- 
sisting of two or three cells, while the rodlets of bacillus of malignant 
oedema are usually straight and single, short filaments being excep- 
tional. 
The microbe was isolated from guinea pigs which had been injected 
with milk nuclein. The milk nuclein was prepared by Hammar- 
sten’s method from fresh casein, by digesting it at 37° with pepsin and 
HC1, and then, after filtering and washing, dissolving it in 0*25 per cent, 
sodium carbonate. The solution thus obtained was injected. 
Loeffler’s Mouse-Typhoid Bacillus.* — Herr S. S. Mereshkowsky has 
recently made some independent observations on the bacillus of mouse- 
typhoid ; and while he agrees with Loeffler in the main, differs from the 
latter on some not unimportant points. He finds that the disease is 
often much more protracted than was originally stated, lasting not 8-14 
days, but even as long as 56-63 days. Agar cultures, when required 
for practical purposes, are very difficult to manipulate,', and the author 
now never uses them or even gelatin cultures for sending away to 
agriculturists, but meat-pepton-bouillon cultivations. The fluid medium 
does away with any danger of damaging the culture from overheating. 
The meat-pepton-bouillon cultures are placed in glass-stoppered bottles 
holding 290-300 ccm. Each bottle contains 250 ccm. of the culture. 
Glass-stoppered bottles are not absolutely necessary, and ordinary bottles 
or flasks may be used if the cotton-wool plug be pushed in and the top 
of the neck filled up with some cementing fluid such as sealing-wax, 
paraffin, or MendelejefFs cement. 
After a period of 7 months, agar cultures become not only harmless 
to mice, but seem to confer a sort of immunity on them ; and there are 
well-marked differences in the results of infection by young and old 
cultures. With young cultures it is found postmortem that there is con- 
siderable enlargement of the liver and spleen ; the intestinal contents are 
pink or even black and fluid. Bacilli are in crowds in the blood, intes- 
tinal contents, and in the viscera. With the old agar cultures the animals 
do not die of the disease ; they must be killed. Post mortem examination 
however shows that they are suffering from a chronic form of infection, 
which seemed to make the animals more lively and better nourished. The 
liver and spleen were enlarged. The intestinal canal was healthy. 
There were bacilli in the viscera, but none in the blood. There was a 
large deposit of subcutaneous adipose tissue. The intestinal contents 
were full of bacilli. 
Deviation from the Type of Cholera Vibrios and Difficulty of 
Diagnosis.'!' — Drs. Bordoni-Uffreduzzi and Abba record a case of cholera 
in which the isolated organism presented certain differences from the 
typical vibrio. The gelatin was liquefied a little more quickly. The 
appearance of pure colonies was not exactly the same. The bacilli were 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xvi. (1894) pp. 612-24. 
f liyg. Rundschau, 1894, p. 481. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., 
xvi. (1894) pp. 201-2. 
