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PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
faculty pf “ licking into shape,” as the somewhat vulgar phrase goes, 
the various masses of his work. If this is borne in mind by the 
author in preparing his next edition, the result will be eminently 
satisfactory. 
PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
Bacteria and Vibrios. — We wish much that some one who is 
familiar with microscopic research would undertake the naming and 
description of these bodies. There has been a recent effort made in 
this direction on the Continent, but it is not entirely satisfactory. 
And it is the more necessary because in some recent investigations 
into the relations of bacteria to the disease of cattle, termed Charbon 
by the French, M. Pasteur has made some startling observations. He 
has asserted that bacteria may present themselves under two forms — 
first, as the rods which alcohol, compressed oxygen, desiccation, and a 
temperature lower than 100° C. can destroy ; and, secondly, as highly 
refracting corpuscles which, on the other hand, resist a temperature 
of 120°, and resist also the action of alcohol and of compressed 
oxygen. These he regards as a mode of generation of the bacteria. 
They do, of course, also multiply by segmentation, but often, on one 
or several points of the bacterium, globular, highly refracting cor- 
puscles arise, the diameter of which is not greater than the thickness 
of the bacterium. After these appear, the rest of the rod quickly dis- 
appears. If an appropriate liquid is inoculated with these corpuscles 
bacteria are developed in it just as if the liquid were inoculated with 
rod-like bacteria, and they constitute the resisting power of the 
liquids experimented on by some authors. However, we should 
like to have the evidence of some experienced microscopist on this 
subject. 
Dr. Roberts on Spontaneous Generation. — Few higher authorities 
could be cited on the question whether spontaneous generation takes 
place or not than the gentleman who last month (August) delivered 
the address on medicine before the British Medical Association at 
Manchester. His remarks on that occasion, of course, referred to the 
question of the origin of infectious disease. He said, though the 
notion of contagious diseases arising from some minute organisms had 
existed since remote ages, only since the time of Pasteur had this 
idea assumed the form of a serious pathological doctrine. The 
discovery during the last decade of organisms in the blood, and their 
extensive influence upon the treatment of wounds, under the guidance 
of Professor Lister, had brought to this question universal attention. 
The author detailed carefully - conducted experiments showing a 
supported analogy between the action of the yeast plant in fermenta- 
tion. Also of the Bacillus subtilis, and the action of certain contagious 
fevers. As in small-pox, so in the experiments detailed, there was 
alike in both cases the same succession of events — viz. a period of 
