ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 575 
decolorised by Gram’s method. The sputum contained hard masses 
composed of a pure culture of the fungus in which branching was rare. 
On some media it grew in spindles and in rods with clubbed ends 
resembling the diphtheria bacillus. On Loeffler’s serum and on egg 
albumen it produced threads. General infection followed on injection 
of cultures into animals. Sometimes it excited suppuration of the lym- 
phatic glands. 
Beetroot Jaundice.* * * § ' — During the past few years the beet cultivated 
in the Pas-de-Calais and near Paris has been attacked by a disease called, 
from the yellow aspect of the leaves, beetroot jaundice. The malady 
not only turns the leaves yellow, but causes them to wither. The plant 
stops growing, and the amount of sugar may be diminished by at least 
50 per cent. When examined microscopically, the cells in the diseased 
parts are found to contain numerous short stumpy bacilli which whirl 
about rapidly in the cell fluid. Pure cultivations of the bacterium, when 
inoculated on healthy plants, reproduce the disease. 
Biochemical Production of Sorbose.f — According to M. G. Bertrand, 
sorbose, the formula for which is C 6 H 12 0 G , does not exist as such in the 
juice of sorbus trees ( S . aucuparia, S. latifolia, S. intermedia ), but is 
developed therein by oxidation of the sorbite through the agency of a 
bacterium very closely resembling, if not identical with, B. xylinum of 
Brown. 
When a pure culture of this bacterium is inoculated on a medium 
containing sorbite, the latter is converted into sorbose, the yield not un- 
frequently amounting to 80 per cent. The bacterium is a motionless 
rodlet 2-3 p long and about 0 • 5 p thick. The rodlets, which are easily 
stained, are united together by a.gelatinous substance. Like Mycoderma 
aceti it is an oxidising organism capable of living in an acid medium. 
The sorbose bacterium is imported by a little red fly, Drosophila 
cellaris. 
Branched Borm of the Tubercle Bacillus.J — Dr. C. F. Craig de- 
scribes and depicts specimens of the branched form of the tubercle 
bacillus. The specimens were obtained directly from the sputum, and 
stained in the ordinary way. The illustrations clearly show typical 
branching and its early or budding stage. 
Bacillus graminearum.§ — In some parts of southern Italy certain 
reeds ( Arundo donax, Phragmites vulgaris , and Galamagrostis epigejos) 
become mouldy and dry after having been cut and stacked. Handling of 
these reeds gives rise to irritation, sometimes severe, of the skin and 
mucous membranes. The lymphatic glands may be enlarged, and the 
temperature rise to 100-104° F. In the dry and mouldy reeds is found 
a copious whitish pink fine powder which consists of spores and filaments 
of various species of Hyphomycetes and Schizomycetes, numerous spores 
of Dendrochium microsorum , and colonies of a bacillus 5-6 p long and 
1-2 /x broad. This bacillus is called B. graminearum. 
* Comptes Rendus, cxxvii. (1898) pp. 338-9. 
t Aim. Inst. Pasteur, xii. (1898) pp. 385-99 (2 figs.). Cf. also Comptes Rendus 
cxxii. (1896) pp. 900-3. 
X Journ. Exper. Med., iii. (1898) pp. 363-70 (1 pi.). 
§ Melfi, 1898, 20 pp. Lancet, 1898, ii. p. 486. 
