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SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
tube, the lower end of which is drawn out to capillary size. The upper 
end is plugged with cotton- wool and can be fixed to the cork by means 
of paraffin. The second hole, closed with cotton-wool, is merely 
intended to allow the air to escape when the cork is pushed in, and so 
prevent it from being forced up the capillary tube. 
After sterilizing the test-tube in the flame, the capillary is also 
sterilized with sublimate, alcohol, and sterile water by sucking these 
reagents through, and the apparatus is then ready for use. 
The material to be collected is obtained by inserting the capillary 
in the fluid, and then sucking it up, The cork and the tube are then 
replaced in the test-tube. If it be desired to prevent the germs in the 
material in the capillary tube from multiplying, small pieces of ice can 
be placed on the bottom of the large tube and the whole packed in 
wadding. 
New Method for the Culture of Diphtheria-Bacilli in Hard-boiled 
Eggs.* — Dr. Wyatt Johnson writes : — “ All who have had experience in 
the diagnosis of diphtheria by culture methods agree in praising their 
accuracy and promptitude. Unfortunately, the general practitioner, 
who must feel most of all the need of some accurate method for the 
prompt diagnosis of doubtful cases, does not seem disposed to avail him- 
self of the new process, and the prophecy of Roux and Yersin, that the 
method would come into general use, appears still to be far from 
fulfilment. 
Thinking that the chief obstacle lay in the difficulty of obtaining 
serum for the culture medium, M. Sakharoff | recently suggested a simple 
plan by which slices of hard-boiled eggs, cut with a sterilized knife and 
placed in sterilized tubes, could be made to replace the serum. Of this 
method I have no personal experience, but should imagine that the 
main objection would still exist, as the physician might not have test- 
tubes about him at the time when they were most needed. 
I have, during the past two months, made use of a method which 
may be regarded as a modification of Sakharoff’s, and which does away 
with the necessity both of test-tubes and the preparation of media before 
they are actually needed for use. 
I employ hard-boiled eggs from which a part of the shell is removed 
-with ordinary forceps, after being tapped so as to break it. In this way 
shell and shell-membrane can readily be peeled off from one extremity 
(by selecting the narrow extremity the air-chamber is avoided), leaving 
a smooth, glistening, moist surface, which offers a most tempting spot 
for making cultures. These are made, as in case of serum, by touching 
the diphtheritic exudation with a sterilized needle and drawing the latter 
lightly from three to six times across the exposed white of the egg. 
Instead of the regulation platinum needle mounted in a glass rod, I 
employ either an ordinary needle or a bit of silver suture wire held in an 
artery forceps. To guard the culture against contamination the egg has 
only to be placed upside down in a common egg-cup. It can afterwards 
be wrapped in paper and transported if necessary. The interior of the 
cup can be sterilized, if desired, by allowing a flame to enter it for a 
* Micr. Bull, and Science News, ix. (1802) pp. 42 and 3. 
+ Ann. Inst. Pasteur, June 1802. 
