90 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
After alluding to the experiments of Charrin and Roger, Lubarsch 
and Kovighi, the results of which are contradictory the one of the 
other, the authors mention the method they adopted. The principal 
experiments were made with Bacillus anthracis , cholera bacillus, and 
St. pyogenes aureus , and a few with hydrophobia. The blood was 
obtained from the carotid, and while strict aseptic precautions were 
adopted during the operation, the use of antiseptics was carefully 
avoided, in order that the blood might not be contaminated with a 
foreign element, and thus endanger the results of the experiment. The 
blood was received into sterilized glass vessels by inserting the artery 
into the neck of the flask. The blood was then defibrinated by means of 
glass beads, and removed to another vessel, in order that the clot might 
not interfere with the equal distribution of the microbes. The blood, 
placed in little flasks, was caused to set obliquely, and then the flasks, 
having been set upright, were kept at a temperature of approximately 
4° C. The blood was infected with agar cultivations rubbed up into 
an emulsion either with 0*75 per cent, salt solution or with bouillon. 
Upon the uniform distribution of the germs in the serum or defibrinated 
blood great stress is laid. Blood inoculated in the foregoing manner 
was tested from time to time by removing a loopful, and then, having 
carefully mixed it with liquefied gelatin, it was spread out on plates, 
and these kept at a temperature of 22°-24° C. 
In the first set of experiments the microbicidal power of blood taken 
from an animal with anthrax was examined, and it was found that blood 
serum or defibrinated blood of rabbits suffering from anthrax can destroy 
anthrax bacilli, even though these are demonstrable in the blood ; but 
when the disease has acquired a firm hold this power is lost. 
The second set relates to experiments with St. pyogenes aureus , and 
these showed that the blood of rabbits infected with St. pyogenes aureus 
possesses up to a few hours before the death of the animal its germicidal 
power, and that this property is first lowered during the act of dying, 
and is altered in such a way that the microbes in the blood not only do 
not disappear, but actually increase after the lapse of 5-7 hours. 
In the third set the blood was taken during and after the infection 
of the animal with cholera bacilli. It would seem that defibrinated 
blood taken from an animal the blood-stream of which is crowded with 
bacilli, affords a medium for the multiplication of micro-organisms, but 
that 24 hours after an intravenous injection, and therefore when all the 
bacilli had disappeared from the circulation, the germicidal power in- 
creased, and when the animal became hydresmic this microbicidal action 
was still more powerful. 
In the next set it was found that the febrile state also increased 
the microbicidal power. 
The last set of experiments was devoted to the connection between 
the quantity of the microbes and the amount of the microbicidal power, 
and these showed that the same quantity of blood was capable of 
destroying a definite number of microbes. 
Fraenkel and Pfeiffer’s Photomicrographic Atlas of Bacteria.* — 
This very useful and excellent atlas is now completed. In all, there 
* Berlin, 1891-2. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk, xii. (1892) 
pp. 249-50. 
