338 
NEWS AND SUNDRIES. 
vaccine which Pasteur now sells for rouget contains a fine bacilli 
which grows in cultures into filaments of considerable lengtJ 
Inoculations with this vaccine, according to Dr. Salmon, do nc 
cause a disease identical with our swine-plague. 
Dr. Salmon states that he has at last found a microbe whie 
seems to be very certainly the cause of swine-plague. The organ 
ism is rather a bacterium than bacillus; it is very irritant, an 
produces all the symptoms and lesions of the disease. It wa 
found in the tissues of hogs in the early stage of the disease, an 
it is believed that previous errors have been due to the fact tha 
in the late stages various septic and other organisms develop.- 
Medical Record. 
Flacherie in Insects. —Professor Forbes publishes in th 
Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, voi 
ii, pp. 257-321, an account of the continuation of the interestin; 
studies on the contagious diseases of insects begun by him ii 
1883. In this account he describes at length a common an< 
highly destructive disease of the European cabbage-worm (Pieri 
rapee). This disease he believes to be caused by a spherical mi 
crococcus, of which he gives two excellent microphotographs 
More complete and conclusive studies were made of a disease o 
the silkworm, which was apparently that known as jaundice. 0 
especial interest is the fact that he was able to produce this die 
ease in cabbage-worms by moistening their food with culture 
fluids containing the bacteria of this disease derived from silk 
worms. These experiments seem to us to be of the highes 
importance. If this or some other bacterium could be use< 
against the cotton-worm, how much more effectual it might b 
than the poisons which are now used ! These are liable to b* 
washed away by the first rain, and will not multiply themselves 
Professor Forbes also reports at length on a disease attacking 
two species of datana in his breeding-cages. This disease he i 
positive is the well-known flacherie of the silkworm.— Science. 
A sensational report comes from Texas of the damage done 
by a recent hail-storm in Lincoln county, which, it is stated, killec 
12,000 sheep, and also some cattle. 
