374 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
demonstrating the presence of typhoid bacilli in the water supplied to 
the barracks of the soldiers among whom the disease had broken out. 
The method adopted was that of Parietti, and the procedure was as 
follows : — Several test-tubes are filled with 10 ccm. of neutral bouillon, 
to which has been added 3-9 drops of 5 grm. carbolic acid and 4 grm. 
of pure hydrochloric acid in 100 grm. of distilled water. The tubes 
are then incubated for 24 hours, and if they still remain unclouded, 
1 to 10 drops of the suspected water are added. If typhoid bacilli be 
present the tubes become cloudy, and they are afterwards easily isolated 
by the plate method. 
Bacterium from Acid Urine.* — Herr Heim records a case of incon- 
tinence of urine occurring in a male aged 20. There was a family 
history of vesical affection. The urine passed was acid, and contained 
leucocytes and a particular bacterium. There was no evidence of a 
gonorrhoeal or tubercular affection. Plate cultivations were made from 
the urine obtained with antiseptic precautions, and there grew up in a 
few days numerous colonies of variable size, usually circular with well- 
defined edge, and of a brownish-yellow colour. The gelatin was not 
liquefied. The colonies were composed of short plump rods with 
rounded ends. The bacterium was devoid of motion, was an acid-former, 
turning Petruschky’s litmus solution red, and was strongly aerobic. 
Its development was inhibited by the presence of hydrogen. The same 
bacterium was easily demonstrable in the urine, and in the leucocytes 
therein. It stained well with the anil in solutions most in vogue, such 
as phenol-fuchsin, alkaline methylen-blue, &c., and also by Gram’s 
method, a point which served to distinguish it from Gonococcus. Ex- 
periments made on animals, both as regards its general pathogenic 
action and its special action on the urine when injected into the bladder, 
were negative. 
Restoring Spore-formation to Asporogenous Anthrax.* — M. C. 
Phisalix finds that the loss of spore-formation in anthrax is due to the 
combined action of heat, air, and slow oxidation of the protoplasm. 
Absence of oxygen acted conservatively, and spore-formation was pre- 
served. Yet the restoration of the spore- forming faculty was not 
effected by continued cultivation in imperfect vacuum. 
By cultivating anthrax which had remained asporogenous for several 
months, and through several generations, on thin layers of bouillon to 
which some quite fresh guinea-pig’s blood had been added, the spore- 
formation at once returned. It is to be noted that in the so-called as- 
porogenous anthrax, pseudo or rudimentary spores are always present, 
and that they differ chiefly from true spores in their feeble resistance to 
heat. 
Presence of Bacterium coli commune in corpses.^ — MM. Wurtz 
and Hermann, from an examination of thirty-two bodies, note the fre- 
quent presence of Bacterium coli commune in the human corpse. From 
24-36 hours after death gelatin plates were inoculated from liver, spleen, 
* SB. Physikalisch-Medicinisclier Gesellschaft zu Wurzburg, 1892, pp. 56-64. 
t Comptes Itendus, cxv. (1892) pp. 253-5. 
X Arch, de Med. Plxp. et d’Anat. Pathol., iii. (1891) No. 6. See Centralbl. f. 
Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk.. xii. (1892) pp. 388-9. 
