684 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
toxicity, the predisposing power of the filtered culture remains unchanged ; 
hence it may be concluded that there are several soluble products, and 
that the toxic substances are not identical with the predisposing sub- 
stances. The substances precipitable by alcohol from bouillon cultures 
will in doses of a few centigrammes kill a dog in 1-2 hours. The chief 
symptoms are choreic and tetanic, with an extreme condition of excita- 
bility. Rabbits are more resistant, but they die after a few days with less 
severe symptoms. Substances soluble in alcohol act as an anaesthetizing 
poison. Dogs die in a condition of general muscular relaxation, with 
failure of the heart and respiration in 1J hours. Rabbits last out ten 
days, but the phenomena are much the same. The substances soluble 
in alcohol and the alcoholic precipitate of St. jpyogenes are accordingly 
antagonistic. 
The poisoned animals show a parenchymatous nephritis produced by 
the substances precipitated by alcohol. 
Asporogenous Heredity of Anthrax.* — M. C. Phisalix inoculated 
two fresh flasks from an anthrax culture several days old which had 
been developed at 42°. One of the flasks was incubated at 42°, and the 
other at 30°. The cultivations at 42° served for making several sub- 
cultures, and the transfers were continued until development did 
not take place at 42°. The cultures at 30° at first throve very well, and 
did not apparently differ from the 42° cultures ; but after a time their 
morphological characters altered considerably, the disappearance of 
spore-formation being the most easily induced. When sowing the 42° 
cultures for the first time, blood was taken from a wether dead of 
anthrax. In five months, twenty-five generations were propagated at 
intervals of two to fourteen days. Up to the twelfth generation there 
was but little morphological or physiological alteration ; then spore- 
formation failed, and the fourteenth generation had no effect when inocu- 
lated on mice, and seemed to be definitely asporogenous. As the power 
of forming spores disappeared the cultures lost their virulence, and by 
the twentieth generation the organism had become innocuous. 
Asporogenous anthrax can therefore be produced by the action of 
heat as well as by antiseptic solutions, and the morphological alterations 
thus effected become inherited after a certain number of generations. 
Vitality of Bacillus anthracis. f — In their second report to the Royal 
Society Water Research Committee, Professors P. F. Frankland and 
H. Marshall W r ard deal with the vitality and virulence of Bacillus 
anthracis and its spores in potable waters. The spore of anthrax may 
be regarded as representative of the extreme limit of endurance possessed 
by pathogenic bacteria. The authors find that there is one natural 
agency at least which is capable of destroying the spores in surface 
waters to which they may have gained access, and that is the action of 
direct sunshine on the organism. It is not definitely determined whether 
the activity of water bacteria may be added as a second bactericidal 
agent, but at any rate sunshine is much more rapid and potent an 
influence. There does not appear to be sufficient evidence to support 
the view that Bacillus anthracis can live and multiply like a water- 
bacterium in ordinary waters. 
* Le Bulletin Med., 1892, p. 293. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk.. 
vii. (1893) pp. 533-4. t Proc. Boy. Soc., liii. (1893) pp. 164-317. 
