SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
81 
The same cholera bacillus sown in alkaline bouillon remains alive for 
quite three years, provided that provision be made for daily renewing 
the air by stuffing the neck of the cultivation apparatus with cotton- 
wool. Yet if, under exactly similar conditions, some lactose be added 
to the bouillon, the microbe soon perishes in consequence of the presence 
of the acid produced by itself. 
The growth of the microbe is always rapid and luxuriant in plain 
bouillon, but if lactose be present it is far more so, the cultivation 
acquiring a surprising density in a few hours; but when the medium 
turns acid the growth is suspended and the organism dies. 
The author concludes by pointing out that paralactic acid, so useful 
as a remedy for diarrhoea caused by B. coli commune , may be efficacious 
in the case of cholera -diarrhoea. 
Influence of Wine on Development of Typhoid and Cholera Bacilli.* * * § 
— Dr. A. Pick points out that when typhoid and cholera are rife it 
would be a good thing to dilute drinking-water with an equal volume 
of wine. This he deduces from the results of some five experiments on 
infected water diluted with white or red wine. The mixtures were left 
for twenty-four hours, and then cultivations made. It was found that 
even in half an hour there was a perceptible diminution in the number 
of germs, and in twenty-four hours they had all disappeared. 
Action of Bacillus of Malignant (Edema on Carbohydrates and 
Lactic Acid-t — Herren R. Kerry and S. Fraenkel state that when lactic 
acid, in the form of its calcium salt, is dissolved in bouillon containing 
peptone and Kemmerich’s meat extract, and the solution, placed in an 
atmosphere of hydrogen, is inoculated with the bacillus of malignant 
oedema, fermentation occurs. After remaining from 8 to 10 days, the 
solution contains propyl alcohol and formic and butyric acids, but no 
ethyl alcohol. 
Bacterium which ferments Starch and produces Amyl Alcohol.^ — 
M. L. Perdrix has separated from Paris water a bacillus, B. amylozymicus , 
which ferments starch with production of amyl alcohol. It is separated 
by cultivation on potato, and finally on gelatin. The bacillus is 2-3 /x 
long and 0 • 5 /x thick ; the rods are joined in pairs and chains, and in 
the absence of oxygen are, like Vibrio butyricus , motile. The rods are 
readily stained ; the spores are set free on the dissolution of the walls of 
the mother-cell. This bacillus flourishes only in the absence of oxygen, 
but readily either in a vacuum or in hydrogen, nitrogen, or carbonic 
anhydride. The optimum temperature is 35° ; it grows quite well at 
20-25° ; at 16 -17° fermentation commences at the end of four days. Its 
maximum temperature is 42-43°. It will grow in all the usual culti- 
vating media, ferments sugars and starch, but does not attack cellulose 
or calcium lactate, differing in this respect from V. butyricus. 
Mixed Cultivations of Streptococci and Diphtheria Bacilli.§ — 
Dr. M. von Schreider confirms the results of Roux and Yersin as to the 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk , xii. (1892) pp. 293-4. 
t Chem. Monatsb., 1891, pp. 350-5. See Journ. Chem. Soo., 1892, Abstr., p. 91. 
% Ann. Inst. Pasteur, 1891, No. 5. See Journ. Chem. Soc., 1892, Abstr., p. 90. 
§ Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. (1892) p. 289. 
