120 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
into sugar, and saccharose is fermented without inversion. The microbe 
is extremely pathogenic to animals (guinea-pig, mouse, rabbit, frog). 
The principal phenomena are scrosanguinolent oedema of cellular tissues, 
with sometimes necrosis, pleurisy, endocarditis, myocarditis, and peri- 
carditis. 
Examination of Oysters for Pathogenic Microbes.* — M. M. Ad. 
Sabatier, A. Ducamp and J.-M. Petit have examined for pathogenic 
microbes the oysters cultivated at Cette, especially for Bacillus coli com- 
munis and B . typhosus. In oysters which had been kept at Cette for 
six months, and also in those recently delivered from Marennes, neither 
microbe was present. In a second experiment oysters were placed in 
a wire cage. The cage was submerged in a canal in front of one of 
the main drains of the town, and the oysters examined in from 25 days 
to one month. In this series the number of microbes present was found 
to be great, but they chiefly belonged to one species, B. fluorescens lique- 
faciens, though B. luteus and M. fervidosus were occasionally found. In 
a third series oysters were injected with pure cultures of B. coli and 
B. typhosus, and, after a sojourn of 4 to 12 days in their natural medium, 
were examined bacteriologically. Neither B. coli nor B. typhosus was 
found. 
Bacterium pathogenic to Phylloxera and Acarina.f — M. L. Dubois 
isolated from a mixture of earth and manure a microbe which is patho- 
genic to certain Hemiptera. It is found under two forms : — as thin wavy 
filaments, 4-7 p long and 0 * 3-0 • 4 p broad, and as a coccus 0 • 2-0 • 3 p in 
diameter. It would seem that these cocci are not spores, for in certain 
cultures they form almost the whole of the growth. The organism is 
stainable, but only with difficulty, by the ordinary methods. It is an- 
aerobic, and the optimum temperature lies between 20° and 30°. 
Astasia aster ospora.J — From observations made on an endosporous 
bacterium, Astasia asterospora, Prof. A. Meyer has obtained results 
which, if confirmed, may revolutionise the present views on the position 
of the Schizomycetes. From the spore membrane escapes a flagellated 
rodlet which forthwith swims away. After having frequently divided 
it comes to rest, and, in company with others, forms spherical colonies in 
which spore-formation takes place. Each rodlet contains one or two 
nuclei demonstrable by means of ruthenium-red and iodopotassic iodide, 
which behave quite like the nuclei of Hyphomycetes. The proto- 
plast also contains one or more axial vacuoles. When the rodlet is 
ready for sporing it begins to swell. At one end appears a vacuole, 
close to which the nucleus betakes itself. As the vacuole grows, plasma- 
filaments extend into it, the site of the future spore becomes more 
highly refractive, and finally becomes sharply defined from the peri- 
plasm. The spore-membrane next begins to contract, and as it does so 
the nucleus wanders off to the periphery, where it is lost sight of. 
Eventually the embryo spore becomes invested with a doubly contoured 
membrane. The rodlet has become a sporange. 
* Comptes Kendus, exxv. (1897) pp. 685-8. f Tom. cit., pp. 790-1. 
t SB. Gesellsch. z. Beforderung d. gesammt. Naturwiss. zu Marburg, No. 5, July- 
1897. See Bot. Ztg., lv. (1897) 2 te Abth.'pp. 289-91. See also Flora, lxxiv. (1897) 
pp. 185-245 (1 pi.). 
