519 
LUSUS NATURE. 
A REMARKABLE lusus uatuvcs from a Down-ewe has been 
submitted to our examination by Mr. Rayment^ M.R.C.V.S., 
Inspector at the Metropolitan Cattle Market. With the 
exception of the head^ which was short, thick, and snub¬ 
nosed, and the feet, which were turned backwards, the 
development was natural; but the entire body, down to the 
toes, was covered with black and white hair, long and wavy, 
precisely like an Isle of Skye terrier. Indeed, when viewed 
from a short distance while lying on the table, the monster 
was mistaken for a dead dog. It was above the average 
size of a newly-born lamb, which depended chiefly upon 
effused fluid beneath the skin. The abdominal viscera were 
normally formed. 
Facts and Observations. 
Formation of Bacteria. —At a recent meeting of the 
Pathological Society, Dr. Bastian made some interesting 
observations on the formation of bacteria. He had never 
found vegetable organisms in the blood of patients suffering 
from septic disease, but he had discovered moving particles 
in typhus, purpura, and some other diseases, produced by 
offsets of the blood-corpuscles that separate and become free, 
or by some change in the blood-plasma, by which small parti¬ 
cles of protein matter are formed free in the fluids of the 
body.— Lancet. 
Pulverized Ether in the Reduction of Hernia.— 
M. Demarquay long since showed the utility of pulverized 
ether in preventing pain during the operation for hernia, and 
]M. Chavergnac now brings forward seven or eight cases to 
show that this agent may be usefully employed in obtaining 
the reduction of hernia without operation. The anaesthetic 
effect of the vapour allows of the performance of taxis with¬ 
out pain, save a disagreeable sensation of burning in the parts 
in contact with the ether. It is, however, the intense chilling 
produced by the pulverized ether, so much greater than that 
produced by merely pouring the fluid on the part, that is the 
important feature. Its suddenness leads to the rapid con¬ 
densation of the gases enclosed in the strangulated intestine 
and the diminution in volume of this. Its effects are superior 
