422 
EXPERIMENTAL PATHOLOGY. 
When extricated the horse was found very lame in the near 
fore leg, and the knee much swollen and painful. Crepita¬ 
tion was detected subsequently. When destroyed, the fol¬ 
lowing fractures were found—scaphoid, one triangular piece, 
chipped off the posterior surface; lunar, fractured in all di¬ 
rections, into five pieces ; cuneiform, simple fracture from 
above to below, dividing the bone into equal parts.— Veteri¬ 
nary Journal. 
EXPERIMENTAL PATHOLOGY. 
ON THE DURATION OF THE LIFE OF PATHOGENIC MICROBES 
IN WATER. 
By Strauss and Dubarrt. 
The experiments reported by them prove that, contrary 
to the admitted opinion, no radical distinctions can be estab¬ 
lished between pathogenic microbes and those commonly seen 
in water, as far as the faculty of multiplying and living in 
that element is concerned, a great number of pathogenic mi¬ 
crobes enjoying this faculty, though in a less degree than the 
true aquatic bacterius. 
The bacillus anthracis , as the authors have shown, are ca¬ 
pable of producing spores in pure distilled water, and other 
pathogenic microbes probably possess the same property. 
This is no doubt the reason why, in the experiments of Strauss 
and Dubarry, as in those of their predecessors, bacilli able to 
produce spores have generally shown themselves better able 
to resist their sojourn in water than the microccocus, for which 
no lasting forms are known. 
From the point of view of the general biology of bacter- 
ias, it is important to know, in a positive manner, that many 
of the pathogenic microbes are able to live, for a very long 
time, in ordinary and even in sterilized distilled water. They 
are capable of accommodating themselves, within certain 
limitations, to this medium, and do not present as an absolute 
characteristic, the nutritive requirements which are some¬ 
times attributed to them. 
