891 
INJECTION OF BACTERIA INTO THE BLOOD WITHOUT 
ANY TOXIC EFFECTS.* 
Professor Livon states that he has injected into the 
femoral or jugular veins of various dogs different liquids in a 
state of putrefaction—bile, urine, &c.—and containing a large 
quantity of Bacteria , without any other result than a certain 
amount of lassitude; the only change in the blood was an 
augmentation in the number of the white corpuscles; autopsy 
revealed no lesions. We draw attention to these statements 
chiefly because it does not seem to be as generally under¬ 
stood as it should be, that ordinary atmospheric bacteria do 
not set up fermentative changes in the healthy living organ¬ 
ism ; Bacillus will produce splenic fever in healthy 
organisms, but these forms require for their perfect develop¬ 
ment free exposure to oxygen, which is very far from being 
the case with Bacterium ter mo. 
NUCLEUS IN BLOOD-CORPUSCLES.f 
Upon reading some months ago Bottcher’s demonstration 
of a nucleus in the mammalian blood-corpuscles after bleach¬ 
ing by corrosive sublimate and alcohol, it occurred to Dr. W. 
T. Belfield, of Chicago, that the asserted nucleus might be 
artificial, due to coagulation of albumen and extraction of 
water by the reagents used. It seemed that if bleaching 
alone were to be accomplished, the same results should follow 
bleaching by other methods. 
With this idea he procured specimens of fresh blood from 
man, the dog, rat, and turtle, exposed the corpuscles to the 
action of various bleaching agents—chlorine, sulphurous acid, 
acetic acid, a freezing temperature—then, when the colouring 
matter had been removed, he immersed them in weak solu¬ 
tions of anilin and carmine, and mounted them in distilled 
water. He was careful to produce as nearly as possible iden¬ 
tical effects upon all the specimens treated by each reagent, 
using the same solutions for the same periods upon them all. 
By each method nuclei was clearly demonstrated in the 
turtle’s blood, but in no other specimen was there any differ¬ 
entiation of colour. It is true that some mammalian corpus- 
* ‘ CR. Soc. Biol.’ for 1877 (1879), p. 355. 
j- ‘Am. Quart. Micr. Journ./ i (1879), p. 238. 
