ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
101 
five to ten minutes. The bacilli were found, sometimes as absolutely 
pure cultivations, chiefly in mucus, but also in the pus-cells. They are 
not quite so thick as the bacillus of mouse septiemmia, and usually 
are two to three times as long as they are broad. Occasionally shorter 
forms, or even quite long filaments are observed. The ends of the 
rodlets are rounded, and as two not unfrequently lie together they 
resemble diplococci. They do not possess a capsule ; do not show any 
movements when cultivated in hanging drops, and are decolorized by 
Gram’s method. 
Artificial breeding of the bacillus was at first attended with con- 
siderable difficulty, and, indeed, there was practically no success until 
it was discovered that the presence of blood was a necessary adjunct to 
the cultivation medium, the indispensable constituent being the haemo- 
globin. A drop or so of blood, obtained with the usual precautions for 
preventing its contamination, was placed on an oblique agar surface, 
and was then inoculated with a trace of influenza sputum. By this 
method colonies which could be propagated from generation to genera- 
tion were cultivated in abundance. The colonies of pure cultivations 
were always of a glass-like transparency ; they are strongly aerobic, and 
the limits of their growth were 42° and 26°-27°. The author was never 
able to demonstrate the presence of his bacillus in the blood either by 
microscopical or bacteriological examination. 
Numerous infection experiments were made on animals, but no success 
was obtained, except with monkeys. By injecting these (into the lungs) 
with 0 • 5 ccm. of cultivation, a fever lasting some days was set up, and 
by increasing the dose a toxaemia and death resulted. 
The author mentions that he has thrice discovered a bacillus having 
many features in common with his influenza bacillus, and calls it pseudo- 
influenza bacillus. 
Water Vibrios and the Etiology of Cholera* — The dogmatic 
position taken up by Koch and his followers on the aetiology of cholera 
necessarily implied that if a certain organism is to be regarded as the 
one and only cause of Asiatic cholera, then this organism would present 
definite morphological and physiological characters, and would respond to 
certain tests. These characters and tests were described quite recently,! 
and the procedure for making a certain and rapid diagnosis of cholera 
consisted in a microscopical examination of the dejecta; cultivations 
in pepton solution ; on gelatin and agar ; the nitro-indol reaction ; and 
experiments on animals. In connection with water vibrios and the 
aetiology of cholera Dr. J. Sanarelli contests the position of Koch, 
points out that the microscopical and cultivation appearances have 
nothing specific about them, and that the nitro-indol test and the patho- 
genic action on animals are the only characteristics of the cholera vibrio 
which need discussion. 
The author then proceeds to describe some thirty-two vibrios ob- 
tained in the city and vicinity of Paris. Nearly all these vibrios were 
found capable of forming indol, and some of them of giving the cholera- 
red reaction. With regard to the pathogenic properties of these thirty- 
two vibrios, only four were found to be extremely pathogenic. 
* Ann. Inst. Pasteur, vii. (1898) pp. 692-735 (2 pis.). 
f See this Journal, 1893, p. 552. 
