524 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Short Notes on Bacteriological Technique.* — Prof. Miller calls 
attention to the following “ tips ” ( Kniffe ) which ho has found useful 
in bacteriological work : — 
(1) Cover-glass preparations may be satisfactorily dried by means of 
a dentist’s air-bellows. The drying may be accelerated by holding the 
nozzle of the bellows in the flame of a burner. 
(2) Collection of condensation water on the cover of a Petri’s capsule 
by turning the capsule upside down in the incubator. Experience has 
shown that impurities do not arise more often by this procedure than on 
the usual one. 
(3) After a streak cultivation on agar has been made, part of the 
plate may be covered with a thin layer of agar so that deep and super- 
ficial growths may be simultaneously observed. This device is specially 
useful for photographic purposes, as the deep and superficial growths lie 
on the same plane. 
(4) Fungus-spores in capsules or test-tubes may be destroyed by 
putting a little calcium chloride on the agar surface and then pouring- 
over it some hydrochloric acid. After this the culture is closed. The 
spores are killed in a few seconds. 
(5) When mice are inoculated they should be narcotized with ether. 
Take the mouse by the scruff of the neck and the root of the tail and 
hold it over a Florence flask which contains some ether. (A little 
practice is necessary for this.) The mouse is anaesthetized in 20-30 
seconds and inoculation is much more easily effected than by the aid of 
any fastening arrangement. Besides this the mouse does not feel the 
pain, a point always to be considered. Etherization is also extremely 
useful for examining the character of inflammatory products after 
inoculation. 
Bacteriological Technique. f — Drs. Acosta and Grande Bossi have 
found that they can leave vessels containing nutrient media and needles 
uncovered without impairing their sterility for 1^ minutes. In two 
minutes only one test-tube, and that inverted, remained uninfected, and 
from 2J-3 minutes nothing remained sterile. 
Cl) Collecting Objects, including Culture Processes.! 
New Method of Preparing Culture Media. J — Dr. J. Lorrain Smith 
points out the difficulty bacteriologists have to contend with in the fact 
that the composition of many of the media used for cultivations of 
pathogenic microbes differs so widely from that of the blood and other 
fluids found in the animal tissues. He describes a method by which 
media can be prepared directly from these fluids by a process which 
reduces the difficulties of manipulation to a minimum. 
Break up the white of a hen’s egg with an egg-beater till it loses its 
consistency ; add 40 per cent, of water and mix well ; pass the mixture 
through muslin to remove any shreds of insoluble material ; add 0 1 per 
cent, of caustic soda, and solidify in the autoclave. With a little care 
in clearing it a jelly of egg-white can be obtained which closely 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xv. (1894) pp. 894-5. 
t Cronica Medico-quirurgica de la Habana, 1893, No. 16. See Centralbl. f. 
Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xv. (1894) p. 876. 
t Brit. Med. Journ., No 1744 (1894) p. 1177. 
