376 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
markedly curved, and occasionally S or E forms are seen. The dimen- 
sions of the microbe appear to vary considerably, according to the nature 
of the medium and the environment, but in all cases the bacterium is 
mobile ; and in starch mixed with saline substances the characters of the 
micro-organism present a notable difference. All the rodlets are straight, 
and nearly as broad as they are long. 
The author places this bacterium in the genus Vibrio, and points out 
that its different characters distinguish it very clearly from the chromo- 
genous curved bacteria. In short, Spirillum luteum is a curved, yellow, 
mobile bacterium, which is telluric, and essentially aerobic. It slowly 
liquefies gelatin, and can exist in non-azotized media. Under the 
latter circumstances it loses its curved bacillus form and assumes an 
almost spherical shape, so that it resembles a coccus. 
Penetrability of the Skin for Microbes.* — Dr. B. Wasmuth finds 
that the healthy uninjured skin of man and animals is penetrable by 
micro-organisms, and that the path of access lies between the shaft and 
sheath of the hairs, the sebaceous and sweat glands not allowing the 
entrance of infection. Experiments were made by rubbing pure culti- 
vations of St. pyogenes albus and aureus into the skin of the hand 
and arm with the middle finger of the opposite hand. Staphylococci 
and erysipelas cocci were rubbed into rabbits, guinea-pigs, and white 
mice, and virulent anthrax into guinea-pigs. 
Most of the experiments made by the author on himself with the 
Staphylococci appear to have been successful, as foci of suppuration in 
the centre of which hairs stood appeared after inunction. Nearly all 
the experiments made with the Staphylococci on animals were failures, 
but all the anthrax inoculations took. Sometimes the cultivations were 
mixed with lanolin before inunction, and this vehicle did not seem to 
interfere with the action of the microbes in any way. 
Flies and the Spread of Cholera. f — Dr. J. Sawtschenko, who has 
been making experiments as to the relation between the spread of 
cholera and flies, finds that it is easy to demonstrate the presence of 
cholera bacteria in fly- excrement passed for two or three days after 
having been fed on pure cholera cultivations. Under these circumstances, 
the flies — which were ordinary house-flies and bluebottles — were fed, 
after infection with the cholera-cultivation, on sterilized bouillon. If, 
however, they were fed on raw meat a number of saprophytes were 
mingled with the cholera bacilli. 
If the flies were fed on intestinal contents of cholera corpses, all 
sorts of bacteria were demonstrable in their excrement. The cholera 
bacteria lost none of their virulence during their transit through the 
fly’s intestine ; and the experiments further showed that other vibrios 
retained their virulence under similar conditions and for similar periods 
(2 or 3 days). 
The author concludes that flies serve not only to spread infection 
directly, but that each patch of excrement must be reckoned as a further 
centre for the extension of the disease. 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xii. (1892) pp. 824-7, 816-54. 
t Tom. cit., pp. 893-8. 
