484 
PHYSICAL CONDITION OF SUPERPHOSPHATE. 
to the presence of living organisms in the blood; and M. 
Toussaint, who practises as a veterinary surgeon at Toulouse, 
has followed up the discovery by writing what is described as 
“ a masterly treatise” on the subject. The microbe —such is 
the title of the live creature which does all the mischief—has 
been kept alive and propagated by these gentlemen by various 
devices, and they have found it quite possible to prepare a 
lymph containing specimens of this kind with which the 
inhabitants of the hen-roost may be inoculated. Having got 
thus far in their experiments, it was easy for the men of 
science to give the cholera to any unsuspecting hen which 
might fall into their clutches, and, as the malady is highly 
contagious, nothing could be more simple than to spread the 
infection through a whole yard. 
Unfortunately, the first result of doing so by artificial 
means was that 18 out of every 20 fowls inoculated perished 
under the process. The difficulty was to find or prepare a 
lymph which would not produce such dire effects; and this 
is what M. Toussaint now claims to have accomplished. He 
is, however, for the present resolved to keep his secret to 
himself, and not to let his system be discredited in the public 
mind by allowing experiments to be conducted by ill-qualified 
practitioners. He claims to be able, by performing the in¬ 
oculation with what he calls the “ modified virus,” to guarantee 
the patient against cholera, and only to lose the lives of about 
5 per cent, amongst the fowls thus infected .—The Globe. 
INFLUENCE OF THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF SUPER¬ 
PHOSPHATE ON ITS VALUE. 
By P. Wagner {Tied. Gentr 1879, 336—339). 
The soluble phosphoric acid in superphosphate on 
coming into contact with the lime of the soil is converted 
into an insoluble form, and consequently does not pene¬ 
trate into the soil; this is especially the case with a 
soil which contains much limestone, the author finding in 
one experiment that 93 per cent, of the soluble phosphoric 
acid had, after three hours’ contact with a calcareous soil, 
become insoluble; the more quickly this conversion takes 
place the less is the penetrating power of the phosphoric 
acid, and the more necessary it becomes to have the super¬ 
phosphate in as fine a state of division as possible, and well 
mixed with the soil.—J. K. C.— Journal of the Chemical 
