ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
519 
obtained from pasteurized beer-gelatin. Yet on neither of these media 
did this organism thrive like yeast or other beer bacteria, the growth 
being only slow and the colonies of small size. 
Inoculations on fish-water-gelatin, milk-gelatin, wort-agar, and 
potato, failed to take. In mineral nutritive solutions the growth was 
very poor. Infection experiments showed distinctly that Saccharo- 
bacillus Pastorianus is the actual and efficient cause of the souring of 
beer; on unhopped beer the schizomycete grows better than on beer. 
The microbe is an acid-former, it decomposes carbohydrates, ferments 
cane-sugar, without previous inversion, into lactic acid, acetic acid, and 
alcohol. It also forms small quantities of formic acid and its homo- 
logues and homologues of ethyl-alcohol. 
The relative quantity of the fixed and volatile acids appears to 
depend on the composition of the nutrient medium. 
Saccharobacillus Pastorianus lives in the presence and absence of air. 
Ten minutes’ exposure to a temperature of 55°-60° C. suffices to sterilize 
a slightly acid beer wort which has not been hopped and has been 
infected with the bacillus. 
Hereditary Transmission of Immunity to Rabies.* — Prof. G. Tiz- 
zoni and Dr. Eug. Centanni record experiments made on three different 
litters with virus of rabies. Only the fathers were immunized, two to 
fixed virus, the third to street virus. The mothers were unprotected, 
although all three were vaccinated to tetanus. 
The authors conclude from these experiments, (1) that the father can 
transmit through the semen immunity to rabies ; (2) the transmission 
does not require any special properties in the mother ; (3) it is trans- 
mitted to all children alike ; (4) it is less than that possessed by the 
father ; (5) the immunity transmitted through the semen is more lasting 
than that acquired through the blood or milk. 
The authors go on to say that these experiments of theirs are in 
agreement with our present embryological knowledge, according to which 
the head of the spermatozoon, as male pronucleus, becomes fused with the 
female pronucleus of the ovule at the time of fertilization. Consequently, 
each new element which arises from the fission of the fertilized ovum 
must always possess a share, both of the maternal and paternal plasma, 
and of the properties inherent in them. With regard to the practical 
importance of these experiments, it is suggested that by carefully selecting 
dogs which have acquired immunity to rabies, this disease might 
eventually be extirpated. 
Chemotaxis of Leucocytes and Immunity.! — M. J. Massart found 
that when virulent cultivations were enclosed in capillary glass tubes, 
and inserted in the abdominal cavity, the less virulent possessed a 
stronger chemotactic action than the more virulent of the same species. 
Fowl-cholera, V. MetscJinikovi, hog-cholera, Bac. pyocyaneus, diphtheria, 
were used for these experiments, and the cultivations were both fresh and 
sterilized. The same results were obtained when virulent cultivations 
were diluted. No conclusion could be drawn as to the virulence of a 
cultivation from the strength of its harmful influence on leucocytes, and 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xiii. (1893) pp. 81-7. 
f Ann. Inst. Pasteur, 1892, p. 321. 
