76 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
better class of wine may eventually be produced from grapes of poor 
quality. 
Fermentation of Bread.* * * § — The fermentation of bread, says Boutroux, 
is principally an alcoholic fermentation of the sugar in the flour, in 
which the yeast plays a double part. It causes the formation of gas, 
which makes the bread swell up, and prevents the bacteria present in 
the flour from developing, whereby the souring of the dough, and decom- 
position of the gluten is obviated. As the gluten remains intact, every 
gas bladder in bread is incased in an elastic membrane, which on baking 
becomes still more delicate. 
It is rare to find yeast in bread, and impossible to discover bacteria 
by microscopical means in fermenting dough ; and the probable reason 
of this is that as dough is made with very little water, and as almost all 
of this is absorbed by the gluten and the starch, very little remains for 
the yeast cells. 
Influence of Yeast on the Smell of Wine.t — Sig. G. Soncini has 
observed that if must of wine be fermented with yeasts obtained from 
different districts, the wine will have a bouquet resembling the wine of 
the country from which the yeast was derived. 
Influence of Tartaric Acid on Brewer’s Yeast.J — Dr. E. C. Hansen, 
in some experiments made with brewer’s yeast, which are practically 
a continuation of those made for the purpose of testing the value of 
Pasteur’s pure yeast, has found that the cultivated varieties are com- 
pletely repressed by the wild races. The experiments were made with 
yeast from a well-conducted brewery. The yeasts were cultivated in 
Pasteur’s cane-sugar tartaric acid solution, and kept constantly at 9° C., 
or at the ordinary room temperature. In the course of the experiments 
it was found that a solution of 10 per cent, saccharose and 4 per cent, 
tartaric acid formed an excellent medium for showing whether there 
were any wild sorts in yeast lees. Three or four cultivations sufficed to 
give a decisive result. 
Morphology and Biology of the Thrush Fungus (Oidium albicans).§ 
— MM. G. Roux and G. Linossier obtained cultivations by means of 
Esmarch’s and Koch’s methods on gelatin, at 15°-20°. The colonies 
attained an ultimate diameter of 4-5 cm. They did not liquefy gelatin, 
were at first white, but later on became brownish. The source of the 
cultivation was aphthous patches in the mouth. The form of the 
fungus was predominantly yeast-like ; that is, in most of the cultiva- 
tions small oval bodies were the prevailing shapes, although in some 
media (melon) the filamentous were in the greatest abundance. No 
purely filamentous cultivation was obtained, all being mixed with yeast- 
like forms. The fungus was grown on 27 different media, details of 
* Le Bulletin Med., 1891, p. 793. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. n. Parasitenk., 
xii. (1892) pp. 153-4. 
f Nuova Rassegna di Viticoltura ed Enologia d. R. Scuola di Conegliano, 1891, 
No. 16. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. (1892) p. 253. 
X Zeitschr. f. d. ges. Brauwesen, xv. (1892) p. 2. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
Parasitenk., xii. (1892) pp. 146-8. 
§ Arch. Med. Exp. et Mat. Pathol., 1890, pp. 62-87, 222-52. See Centralbl. f. 
Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xi. (1892) pp. 733-6; xii. (1892) pp. 162-5. 
