ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
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typhoid serum even in vitro gives a characteristic reaction with typhoid 
bacilli. 2 mgrm. of serum obtained from the goat, which serum is ten 
times stronger than that of the typhoid fever patient, is mixed with 
bouillon in the proportion of 1-40. When typhoid bacilli were added 
(2 mgrm.) to the culture medium and the latter incubated, fine whitish 
flakes were thrown down, and only after twenty-four hours was there a 
general turbidity. In this the authors see a means for diagnosing the 
typhoid bacillus, since the same medium when infected with other organ- 
isms, such as cholera, became turbid almost directly. 
Method for Rapid Recognition of the Cholera Vibrio and the 
Typhoid Bacillus.* — The method devised by Herren M. Gruber and 
H. E. Durham is based on the observation of the first-mentioned that 
the blood-serum of animals immunised to cholera or typhoid exerts 
in vitro a strikingly specific action on these bacteria. If a scraping 
from an agar culture be mixed with the protective serum, the bacteria 
aggregate into balls and their movements cease. Even with the naked 
eye the massing together of the bacteria can be recognised ; for the uni- 
form turbidity of the medium first becomes flaky, the flakes becoming 
clumps of bacteria, which, as they increase in size, fall to the bottom, 
leaving the fluid clear. No such result obtains if other bacteria be used. 
The reaction can be carried out in a test-tube by mixing a loopful of a 
young agar culture in 1/2 ccm. bouillon, and this with 10 mgrm. of the 
serum in 1/2 ccm. bouillon ; or a drop of the serum may be poured on a 
cover-glass with a similar sized drop of a bacterial suspension, and, after 
mixing the two drops, inverting the cover-glass over a hollow-ground 
slide. If the bacteria be true cholera or typhoid, as the case may be, 
movement will be found to be extinguished within a minute, and com- 
plete bailing set up. 
Tochtermann’s Medium for Diagnosis of Diphtheria.f — Herr W. 
Kempner made a series of test experiments with four cultivation media 
for diphtheria bacilli. These were Loeffler’s blood-serum, Tochtermann’s 
blood-serum agar and Deycke’s alkali albuminat agar and glycerin agar. 
The last two media failed to come up to the high standard of the first 
two, and though Loeffler’s medium took the first place, as far as numerical 
success is concerned, yet Tochtermann’s substratum is really awarded 
the palm, on the ground of easier manipulation and more rapid diagnosis. 
Tochtermann’s medium is made by adding 1 per cent, pepton, 1/2 per 
cent, common salt, 0 • 3-0 * 5 per cent, grape-sugar to a 2 per cent, aqueous 
solution of agar; this, after filtration, is boiled for 1/4-1/2 an hour with 
an equal bulk of unsterilised sheep’s blood-serum, or in the proportion 
of 2 to 3. The mass is filtered into test-tubes and sterilised, but should 
not be heated too long, as its efficiency as a cultivation medium is thereby 
damaged. 
Presence of Influenza Bacilli in the Central Nervous System. J — 
Drs. A. Pfuhl and Walter made a bacteriological examination of the 
* Miinchener Med. Wochensclir., 1896, No. 13. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
Parasitenk., l te Abt., xix. (1896) pp. 895-6. 
f Hyg. Rundschau, 1896, p. 409. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., 
l te Abt., xix. (1896) pp. 1013-4. 
X Deutsche Med. Woehenschr., 1896, Nos. 6 and 7. j J3ee Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. 
u. Parasitenk., l t9 Abt., xix. (1896) pp. 1004-5. 
