290 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
In tlie nuclear half small granules appear, “ the nucleoli of the spores,” 
which later on develope a nucleus and plasma. The plasmatic half 
seems sometimes to participate in this process of subdivision, and some- 
times to take no share in it. 
New Method for demonstrating Tubercle Bacilli on cover-glasses 
and in sections.* — Dr. C. Aren's communicates the following method, 
whicli he says is quick and safe for demonstrating tubercle bacilli. It 
consists in staining sputum with a saturated alcoholic solution of fuchsiu 
diluted with chloroform, and decolorizing with a solution containing 
hydrochloric acid (HC1, 10 ; aq. dest., 260 ; alcohol, 90 per cent., 730). 
Sputum. — A fuchsin crystal the size of a millet seed is put in a watch- 
glass together with 2 or 3 drops of absolute alcohol, or 3 drops of a 
saturated alcoholic solution of fuchsin may be used. To this solution 
2 -3 ccm. of chloroform are added, and when precipitation has ceased and 
all cloudiness disappeared, the cover-glass is stained (4-6 minutes) in 
the ordinary way. The chloroform is allowed to evaporate and the 
preparation decolorized in 96 per cent, spirit, to which 3 drops of HC1 
are added. It is then washed and may be examined in water straight 
away or be after-stained with dilute methylen-blue. 
Sections.— These are removed from spirit to the chloroform-fuchsin 
solution and stained for 4-6 minutes, decolorized with the acidulated 
spirit, the acid washed out with strong spirit, and contrast-stained with 
dilute methylen-blue. 
Influenza Bacillus, and methods for obtaining and demon- 
strating it. | — Herr Pfeiffer has found in the sputum of influenza, in 
the peribronchitic tissue and on the surface of the pleura a minute 
bacillus of about the thickness and half the length of the bacillus of 
mouse septicaemia. They were seen in the pus-cells, three or four often 
forming a chain. They stain with Gram’s method, with the basic anilin 
dyes, but best with dilute Ziehl’s solution or with hot Loeffler’s methylen- 
blue. Pure cultivations of the bacillus were made in per cent, sugar- 
agar. Kitasato separated this micro-organism from others mixed up in 
the oral secretion by growing them on glycerized agar at incubation tem- 
perature, whereon they appeared as microscopic drops much like water 
but never running together. They were cultivated on this medium to 
the tenth generation. Cultivated in bouillon white flakes appeared, these 
sank to the bottom, leaving the fluid above quite clear, whence it was 
inferred that the bacillus is immobile. Inoculation experiments on apes 
and rabbits were successful, but on no other animals. 
The same micro-organism has been demonstrated microscopically in 
preparations made from blood by Canon. The cover-glass preparations, 
having been dried in the air, were placed for 5 minutes in alcohol, and 
then stained for 3-5 hours at 37° C. in Czcnzynke’s solution (saturated 
aqueous solution of methylen-blue, 40 parts; 1/2 per cent, eosin solution 
(in 70 jier cent, spirit), 20 parts; aq. destil., 40 parts); they are then 
washed in water, and having been dried, mounted in balsam. By this 
stain the blood-discs are stained red, and the white corpuscles and bacilli 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xi. (1892) pp. 9-10. 
t Detitseh. Med. Woehensclir., 1892, Nos. 2 and 3. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. 
u. Parasitenk., xi. (1892) pp. 148-50. 
