314 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
having many resemblances to Blastomycetes. The medium used was 
made from cancer after the manner of beef infusion, and after having 
been neutralised, 2 per cent, glucose and 1 per cent, tartaric acid were 
added. Anaerobic environment was adopted for the cultivations. The 
liquid medium becomes cloudy, and the growth deposits a sediment. 
Subcultures were made on agar-gelatin and potato. The growth at first 
is white, becoming yellow or yellowish brown later on. Microscopically, 
it consists of round bodies invested with a strongly refractive capsule, 
sometimes showing a double contour. There is a deeply staining nucleus. 
The diameter varies from 0*004 mm. to 0*04 mm. Beproduction takes 
place by budding. 
Morphologically, these bodies corresponded with those found in the 
original tumour, and with those described by numerous observers in cases 
of cancer. 
Successful inoculations were made on rabbits and guinea-pigs. In 
the viscera were numerous metastatic deposits just as in cancer. 
I Myxomycetes. 
Psendocommis Vitis.* — M. J. Debray treats at great length of this 
destructive parasite, which, though most frequent on the vine, attacks 
also many other plants, — of its structure and life-history, of the changes 
which it brings about in the tissues of the host, and of the treatment of 
the disease. He finds it also as an accompaniment of the “ sereh ” of the 
sugar-cane, often associated with a gummy secretion, and in the root- 
tubercles of Leguminosas. The author describes four different forms 
which the plasmode may assume, in addition to the spherical cysts. 
Protophyta. 
B. Schizomycetes. 
Internal Structure of Bacterial Spores.f— By adopting a special 
method of staining, Dr. G. Catterina has demonstrated the existence of 
a central body in the anthrax spore. This central body is to be re- 
garded as a nucleus. When the spore develops, the central body becomes 
rod-shaped, and is disposed in the long axis of* the spore, and when the 
latter divides, the central body does so too. By the method adopted the 
spore may be double-stained, and it also imparts the notion that the 
membrane is not uniform. 
Similar appearances were observed in the spores of B. anthracis 
symptomatici , B. megaterium , and B. subtilis. 
Microbes of Flowers.f — M. D. Freire, by making cultivations from 
the carpels and stamens of flowers, and more particularly the stigmas 
and anthers, has detected the presence of numerous micro-organisms. 
Some of his experiments are recited, and contain short descriptions of 
new species of microbe. 
(1) Hibiscus rosa sinensis. From the anthers of the flower was 
cultivated Micrococcus cruciformis sp. n., the colonies of which on gelose 
* Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xlv. (1898) pp. 253-88 (2 pis.). Cf. this Journal, 1898, 
p. 224. f Atti Soc. Veneto-Trentina, iii. (1898) pp. 429-37. 
X Comptes Rendus, cxxviii. (1899) pp. 1047-9. 
