6 SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
action. It would have been preferable that the nomination 
of departmental veterinary surgeon should be made by the 
prefet from a list drawn up by the veterinarians called to¬ 
gether for the purpose. So all rights and all interests would 
have been protected, and, thanks to that double election, the 
holder of the appointment would unite all conditions for 
recognition of his authority and efficacy of his influence. 
It is also by a similar method that the departmental veteri¬ 
narian of Seine-et-Marne has been named, and that nomina¬ 
tion which resulted in the appointment of M. Yerrier, of 
Provins, may be considered as a good testimony in favour of 
the system which it serves to illustrate.” 
M. Colin recently communicated to the Academy of 
Medicine the results of many experiments which he has 
made on the neutralisation of virus in the organism. The 
aim of these was to ascertain if, when once the organism has 
become impregnated with a virulent agent, it is possible to 
destroy its action in the organism itself, as may be done in 
a vessel in the laboratory, by direct contact of virulent matters 
with the substances which are capable of destroying the 
special activity which these matters possess. The anti¬ 
ferments or anti-virulents with which M. Colin has experi¬ 
mented are iodine in large doses, or iodide of potassium, 
carbolic acid, sulphuric acid, borax, sulphate of iron, and 
sulphate of quinine. His experiments were made on forty 
animals—rabbits or rats. The virulent matter employed was 
that of charbon. The operation consisted in introduction 
by means of the lancet of the charbonaceous matter into 
the ear or the tail, which were amputated at the end of ten 
minutes, and the almost immediate injection into the cellular 
tissue of the substance to be experimented with in doses of a 
certain number of milligrammes per kilogramme of the weight 
of the body. M. Colin thus summarises his conclusions :— 
“ Could the results which I have submitted to you have been 
absolutely foreseen ? Ought we not to have expected other¬ 
wise with such powerful agents as iodine, phenic acid, hypo¬ 
sulphite of soda, and sulphate of quinine ? Should we not 
reasonably have hoped that such agents would at least have 
been an obstacle to the development of charbon, that they 
would have impeded its progress or lessened its gravity, since 
they were introduced into the organism at the very time 
when the morbid principle commenced its attack ? They 
have been able to do nothing, either in small or in large 
proportion, administered once or many times, at the com¬ 
mencement, or at the height of the virulent intoxication, 
however small may have been the quantity of virus adminis- 
