832 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Hremacalcium, which is proposed as a substitute for Kleinonberg’s 
haematoxylin, is made with the following ingredients: — haematein or 
ammouia-haematein, 1 grm.; aluminium chloride, 1 grm. ; calcium 
chloride, 50 grm. ; acetic acid, 10 ccm. ; 70 per cent, alcohol, 600 ccm. 
The first two substances are to be pounded together very intimately; 
the acetic acid and the alcohol are then to be added, with or without the 
aid of heat. Last of all, the calcium chloride is added. The fluid is 
of a red-violet hue. After having been washed in neutral 70 per cent, 
alcohol the preparations are violet or blue, and rarely require to be 
treated with acidulated alcohol. If too red they may be treated with 
2 per cent, aluminium chloride dissolved in alcohol. 
Fraenkel on Gabbet’s Stain for Tubercle Bacilli.* — Dr. B. Fraenkel 
seems to think that the method known as Gabbet’s, the original com- 
munication of which was in the ‘Lancet,’ 1887, p. 757, is really the 
same in principle as one published by him in 1884. Gabbet’s method 
consists in decolorizing with a mixture of H 2 S0 4 and methylen-blue. 
Fraenkel’s decolorizer, as given in No. 13 of Berlin. Klin. Wochenschr. 
for 1884, is nitric acid, besides which the formula includes alcohol. 
What should be the criterion for determining what is or what is not a 
new principle in bacteriology must remain open. At any rate, the 
formula given by Dr. Glorieux, published in Bull. Soc. Beige de Micro- 
scopic. 1886, pp. 44-8, is much nearer in principle than Fraenkel’s, and 
differs from Gabbet’s merely in that the latter contains no alcohol. 
Syringes and their Sterilization.! — Dr. Tavel describes a syringe 
which is easily sterilized. Though chiefly intended for surgical pur- 
poses, it is useful in the bacteriological laboratory. The principle of 
the apparatus consists in avoiding the trouble of having to sterilize the 
piston part, which is quite disconnected from the syringe-needle portion. 
The piston, half the rod of which is notched, is furnished at the end 
with a screw and tap. To this screw is screwed on a metal cap, and into 
this latter fits the graduated glass holder or syringe, terminating at its 
other end in a steel needle. For laboratory work the author discards 
the piston portion, using the syringe-needle and adapting this for 
injection purposes by means of a Y-shaped glass tube. To the arms of 
the Y are fitted the syringe-needle and the bellows by means of rubber 
tubes. 
The apparatus used for sterilizing these syringe-needles is then 
described. It is an ordinary rectangular vessel heated by gas, the jet 
of which is regulated by Reichert’s thermo-regulator, but instead of water 
the reservoir contains paraffin. In this the syringe-needles, inclosed in 
test-tubes plugged with cotton-wool, are suspended, and thus are steri- 
lized with hot air. The regulator is adjusted for 155°, so that the inside 
of the syringes may be kept at 150°, a temperature which is maintained 
for two hours. Higher temperatures are injurious to the steel of the 
needles. The sterilizing over, the test-tubes are taken out and wiped. 
The needles, kept inside till required, remain perfectly aseptic. 
* Deutsch. Med. Wochenschr., No. 15, 1891. See Ceutralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
Parasitenk., x. (1891) pp. 234. 
f Annales de Micrographie, iii. (1891) pp. 564-73 (3 fig?.). 
