402 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
The author then alludes to devices for preventing agar plates made 
in these double capsules from drying. Into the upper capsule or cover 
is inserted a semicircle of moistened sterilized filter paper. All the 
colonies can be seen if the cover be turned round. But gumming up 
the interspace between the capsules, or putting a layer of paraffin or 
vaselin along the edge, answers the purpose very well. 
Method for Finding the Exciting Cause of Vaccinia.* — Dr. Siegel 
mixed 1-2 grm. of animal lymph with distilled water and injected the 
mixture into the peritoneal sac of calves and goats. There were no febrile 
or other symptoms. The animals were killed in from 4-8 days. The peri- 
toneum, and especially the mesentery, was covered with a fibrinous, easily 
detached deposit, besides which there were numbers of small nodules 
on the peritoneum, swelling of the mesenteric lymphatic glands (from 
inflammation and haemorrhage) and of the liver, parts of which were 
softened. Blood-serum tubes inoculated from the glands and liver 
developed in two or three days colonies of a bacillus, the length of 
which exceeded the breadth only by a little. Gelatin was not liquefied, 
and in puncture and stroke cultivations the colonies spread from the 
inoculation track all over the surface like a transparent veil. Micro- 
and macroscopical appearances of disease were found in a goat after 
peritoneal injection, but inoculations of mice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, and 
pigeons were without result. 
Eight adults and three infants were then inoculated. Bedness and 
some swelling resulted, and these passed off by the fourth day. After a 
lapse of fourteen days all these persons were inoculated with fresh 
effective lymph. The three children and one adult took. The author 
concludes that the vaccine bacteria lost virulence from growing on an 
artificial medium, so that while the lymph was able to protect some who 
had been previously vaccinated, it was useless to the more sensitive 
children. 
Incoagulable Albumen as Cultivation Medium.!— M. E. Marchal 
has used with success for the cultivation of pathogenic and saprophytic 
bacteria, albuminous solutions prepared in the following way. Fresh 
white of egg is diluted with distilled water ; it is then filtered. To the 
solution sulphate of iron 1-1000 is added in the following proportions : — 
Solution of white of egg 1—5 per cent., add 1-5 ccm. the litre ; solution 
of white of egg 5-10 per cent., add 5-10 ccm. ; solution of white of egg 
10-15 per cent., add 10-15 ccm. The ferrous sulphate has the curious 
property of preventing heat from coagulating the albumen. The solu- 
tions may be sterilized at 115° and are perfectly limpid with a slightly 
alkaline reaction. 
New Method for Preparing Gelatin. J — Drs. E. Acosta and F. Grande 
Bossi recommend the following procedure for preparing nutritive gelatin 
on the ground that no filtering apparatus is necessary, that the necessary 
quantity of gelatin can be quickly prepared, that it is firm, transparent, 
* Deutech. Med. Wochenschr., 1893, p. 29. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
Parasiteuk., xiii. (1893) pp. 291-2. 
t Bull. Soc. Beige de Microscopie, xix. (1893) pp. 64-5. 
X C’ronica Medico-quirurgica, 1892, No. 14. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
Parasiteuk., xiii. (1893) p. 207. 
