226 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
nutritive medium. After the spirilla liad developed iu these flasks, 
they were isolated in agar or gelatin, to which malate of sodium, 
asparagin, phosphate of potassium, and also minute quantities of Mohr’s 
salt and carbonate of soda, were added. 
Micrococcus tetragenus citreus.* — Herr S. Sterling describes a 
coccus which was found iu the blood and urine of a case of ulcerative 
endocarditis. In form it is very similar to Gonococcus ; it is grouped 
in fours ; spore-formation was not observed ; it stains with alkaline 
methylen-blue and by Gram’s method. The colonies on gelatin and 
agar were yellow, round, and radiating. In puncture cultivations the 
citron colour was most evident in gelatin which is liquefied. On potato 
the growth is little evident, though by the end of the second week a 
thin yellowish layer becomes visible. Other characters, such as coagu- 
lation of milk, indol reaction, gas formation, and phosphorescence, were 
negative. In the first direct cultures from the blood and urine, a capsule 
enclosing four cocci was demonstrable. The organism is called M. tetra- 
genus citreus. 
Metastatic Anthrax in Man. j — Dr. A. Clement describes a case of 
anthrax which was particularly marked by the small number of bacilli 
in the capillaries, by the almost complete absence of bacterial emboli, 
usually so frequent in anthrax, and by the extent of the metastatic 
lesions. From these facts the author concludes that the prevalent 
opinion that anthrax is essentially and always a blood infection, is 
wrong. Anthrax is rather a local affection which, according to indi- 
vidual predisposition and the quality of the virus, gets well without after 
consequences, or is complicated with bacteriaemia, or with metastatic 
lesions. Dissemination of the bacilli takes place more probably through 
the lynqfliatic system than through the blood. 
Microbe of Flax Retting.J — M. S. Winogradsky records the results 
of researches, made in his laboratory by M. Y. Fribes, as to flax retting 
and its microbe. After careful trials the specific agent of this industrial 
process was found to be a somewhat large bacillus, which, when it con- 
tained a spore, was tadpole-shaped. When young the joints are from 
10-15 jx long and 0 • 8 /x broad. Later on they thicken somewhat (1 /x), 
and then ovoid swellings 3 /x by 2 /x appear in their course, the spore 
therein being 1*8 [x by 1*2 /x. M. Fribes obtained pure cultures of 
this bacillus by cultivating it anaerobically on boiled potato rubbed in 
with chalk. 
Trial as to the retting power of these pure cultures was made on an 
extensive scale, and the flax thus treated was afterwards scutched, harled, 
and combed ; the fibres turned out fine, silky, and pale, but rather weak 
and loose in texture from the fermentation being too protracted. Further 
experiments showed that the specific agent of flax retting acts in virtue of 
being a pectic ferment, decomposing pectic substances, pectin, or pectic 
acid with great facility. The microbe has no action on cellulose or gum 
arabic. It can, however, ferment glucose, cane-sugar, milk-sugar, and 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., l t0 Abt., xix. (1896) pp. 141-2. 
t Ann. de Micrographie, viii. (1896) pp. 1-20. 
j Comptes Rendus, cxxi. (1895) pp. 742-5. 
