INOCULATION OF FOWLS. 
483 
grasses and to particulai’ly avoid the older and ripe ones, 
probably directed by the odour of trimethylamine, for I found 
that I could not produce this odour till the sclerotium was 
fully developed and the starch completely gone. 
I therefore think the following conclusions may be safely 
drawn : 
1. —-That for all medicinal purposes, or pharmaceutical 
preparations, ergot ought to be gathered in the months of 
August or September. 
2. —That ergot always attains its greatest intensity at the 
end of the vegetation period. 
3. —That the medicinal powers of ergot diminish or dis¬ 
appear as soon as the fructifying period commences. 
I have chemically and microscopically examined the ergots 
produced from the Lolium perenne while the plants have been 
living. The infusion was first treated by the ether process 
of Stas. On the evaporation of the ether an oily residuum 
was obtained, containing a minute quantity of a resinous 
substance. The extract was then dissolved in alcohol, after¬ 
wards mixed with water, and filtered. Chloriodide of mercury 
caused a precipitate reminding one of a vegetable alkaloid. 
I did not detect any crystals of cholesterine that are said 
to exist in Secale cornutum, but phosphoric acid was clearly 
show n by using molybdate of ammonia and nitric acid. 
In toxicological investigations the microscope is the most 
to be depended upon. The conidia are very abundant and 
may always be detected in bread, pastry, or flour, especially 
if acetic or chromic acids be used to make their presence 
more evident. The one sixth or one eighth of an inch is a 
sufficiently high power. I always find that this mode of 
detection is preferable to the use of potass and distillation 
alone. The little conidia may be generally observed in the 
intestinal canal of a poisoned person or animal. 
INOCULATION OF FOWLS. 
The learned in fowl-farming are w ell aware w r hat a fatal and 
disastrous malady is that which goes by the name of chicken 
cholera. Remedies have been tried without avail for many 
years, and it has required the scientific exertions of two 
nations to discover both the nature of the disease and the best 
method of dealing with it. 
Signor Peroncito, of Turin, seems to have been the first to 
establish, in 1878, the theory that the so-called cholera is due 
