ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
249 
spores of Ustilago carlo suspended in water. In course of a few hours 
the spores were consumed by the phagocytes and taken into the circulat- 
ing blood. Though relatively large, 2-3 spores may be seen in the 
microphages and 8-10 in the macrophages. For some days there is no 
obvious change in the swallowed cells but later they become yellowish, 
their protoplasm granular, and are eventually resolved into a collection of 
minute granules inclosed within the phagocyte which has also undergone 
analogous changes. 
Immediately after the injection the activity of the phagocyte seems 
to increase, a period succeeded by a diminution of the phagocytes in the 
circulating blood ; if the frog be now killed free spores are found in the 
viscera, being most numerous in the liver and spleen, and especially in 
the former. In fact, wherever the spores are injected they invariably 
accumulate in these organs. 
The fate of the phagocyte goes hand in hand with the destruction of 
the spore. 
Observations on the liver showed that the included spores become, 
so to speak, digested by the phagocytes which at the same time become 
granular and swell up, and the relicts of the two bodies may be 
observed occasionally in the blood, but more frequently in the bile. 
After showing that the spores do not contain or produce any toxic 
substance which might react on the phagocyte, the author alludes to the 
different hues the spores assume in the liver, spleen, and abdominal 
glands, being yellow in the fiivt, yellowish -brown in the second, and 
orange in the third. 
Connecting this with the fact that the destructive action of the 
phagocyte while circulating in the blood-current is but slight, the author 
suggests that the process is possibly in a great measure due to the action 
of the fluids of these organs. 
etiology, Pathogenesis, and Treatment of Tetanus.*— The tetanus 
bacilli, says Sig. Sormani, exist in the uppermost layers of the ground, 
and especially where this has been recently manured or infected in any 
way. By rolling on the ground and afterwards licking their dirty hides 
dogs and other animals introduce the bacilli into their alimentary canal 
and then afterwards deposit them again with the faces. 
From this arises the curious phenomenon that the virulence of the 
bacteria first becomes attenuated by the gastric juice, and afterwards, in 
the intestine, reassumes its potency. If animals be withheld from any 
exposure to fresh infection their faeces will still remain virulent and 
tetanous, thus rabbits have been infected from the faeces of dogs which 
have been confined for at least sixteen days. Tetanus bacilli invading 
the organism by the respiratory tract do not infect unless they are 
able to penetrate within the tissues. Most cases of this disease have been 
acquired by wounds becoming infected by dunged earth. As tetanus 
bacilli are extremely resistant to the ordinary disinfection solutions and 
are only destroyed with anything like rapidity by iodoform and acidu- 
lated 2 per cent, sublimate solution, the obvious treatment is to scrape 
the wound and then having washed it with the sublimate solution to 
sprinkle it with iodoform. 
* Trans. Internat. Med. Congress, 1891. Pee Bot. Centralbl., xlvii. (1891)p. 380. 
