232 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Having settled this point, the author made the attempt to ascertain 
what was the pliylacogenous substance, or at any rate the group to which 
it belonged. Allusion is then made to Hankin’s protective albumose, 
and to the more than negative results which followed when Petermann 
adopted Hankin’s method. The immunizing (pliylacogenous) sub- 
stances were divided into two classes according as they were precipitated 
by or soluble in alcohol, and with these substances intravenous and 
subcutaneous injections were made on sheep. Only those animals re- 
covered which had been treated with substances soluble in alcohol ; all 
the others died. From these experiments the author concludes that 
anthrax bacilli, when cultivated in bouillon, excrete a vaccinating sub- 
stance, and that this is soluble in alcohol. 
Phagocytosis. — Hr. A. Looss replies * to the reply of Prof. Metschni- 
koff on the great subject of how the tadpole’s tail disappears. According 
to Metschnikoff it is due to phagocytosis, and the phagocytes which digest 
the contractile substance are formed from the sarcoplasm and muscle 
nuclei. 
It was this definition of the phagocyte which started the controversy ; 
for, according to the author, as generally accepted, and that too from 
Metschnikoff himself, who formulated the doctrine, the phagocyte was 
an amoeboid connective-tissue cell or a mobile lymph- or blood- corpuscle. 
It was therefore surprising to discover that the phagocytes had quite a 
different origin, and to find it laid down that their own inventor had 
never identified them with leucocytes. It was suggested to the author 
that his preparations were unsatisfactory and his interpretation of the 
facts erroneous. 
It was only natural to reply, and the author places in parallel 
columns extracts from the earlier and later writings of Prof. Metsch- 
nikoff, showing how the views of the latter have materially altered. For 
example the following are contrasted : — 
“ At the beginning of the metamorphosis amoeboid cells accumulate 
in the vicinity of some tail-muscles,” j and yet neither in the muscle 
itself nor in its neighbourhood are ever perceived any agglomerations 
of leucocytes.^ It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that a 
phagocyte may mean almost any kind of cell. 
Diplococcus Pneumoniae and Mastoiditis.§ — Dr. A. Scheibe was 
able in sixteen cases of mastoiditis associated with acute otitis media, 
to demonstrate both microscopically and by cultivation Diplococcus 
pneumoniae in nine instances, or 56 per cent. The frequency of the 
pneumonia coccus is all the more striking if a comparison be made with 
uncomplicated cases of inflammation of the middle ear. 
Bacterial Origin of Bilious Fever of the Tropics. || — Dr. Domingos 
Freire finds that the bilious fever of hot climates and yellow fever, 
though having many resemblances, are perfectly distinguishable by their 
clinical phenomena, and by their bacteriological characters. The infec- 
tious agent of the former is a bacillus ; of the latter, a micrococcus. The 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. (1892) pp. 514-6. 
t Biol. Centralbl., iii. p. 561. J Annales Pasteur, vi. (1892) p. 17. 
§ Zeitschr. f. Ohrenheilk., xxiii. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. 
(1892) p. 677. H Comptes Rendus, cxv. (1892) pp. 366-8, 
