Report of Society's Meetings. 133 
As we have pointed out elsewhere the experiment of 
filtering diluted rum has no bearing on the question as 
to whether or not the faultiness is due solely to the pres- 
ence of the microbe. The filtration of the undiluted rum 
in which it is claimed that the faultiness was removed 
by the process, apparently was only carried on with one 
sample of rum, and it is rather a bold assertion from this 
single experiment to claim that the sole cause of faulti- 
ness of rum lies in the presence of the microbe. We 
have not been satisfied with filtering one sample but have 
filtered numerous samples, using in each case all possible 
precautions against error, with results which do not agree 
with those quoted with regard to this single experiment. 
The next experiment described appears to us to be a 
very weak one. Here we are told that a " pint bottle of un- 
diluted faulty rum'' (by this we presume the authors mean 
the contents of the bottle and not the pint bottle itself) 
was passed twice through a filter, and that the "sedi- 
ment" left on the filter was transferred to an equal bulk 
of sound rum contained in a similar bottle. If this were 
all that was done the experiment would not be amiss, 
but in order to make certain that the result should agree 
with their theory, the experimenters scraped off and 
added to the sound rum a deposit adherent to the interior 
of the first bottle. Comment on such a proceeding is 
unnecessary. 
The authors assume on page 9, that we filtered our 
samples only once in any case. This assumption is quite 
incorrect, and besides its introdu6lion does not add 
in any way to the strength of their case. In each 
instance the filter used by us, a Pasteur-Chamber- 
land candle, was cleansed, a very necessary pre- 
caution, by passing through it pure diluted alcohol 
containing 90 per cent, of absolute alcohol, as long 
as it became coloured, and until the filtered spirit ceased 
to become opalescent on dilution with water. The filter 
was then sterilised and the spirit to be tested passed 
through It. We used a much lower pressure than did 
the authors to obtain filtration. Some samples were 
filtered once, several twice or ottener, and one four times, 
without altering the result. As a proof of the efficiency 
