New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 151 
Brown and Escombe (1898: 16) satisfied themselves that 
the cytolytic enzym of barley is not appreciably weakened in 
its action by a saturated aqueous solution of chloroform. 
Smith (1901) has called attention to the fact that many or- 
ganisms are surprisingly resistant to chloroform and empha- 
sized the point we have just made, as to the need of caution 
in its use. Potter (1900: 448) did not succeed in sterilizing 
cultures of the turnip white-rot organism with chloroform, 
but Spieckermann (1902: 166) found chloroform effective for 
sterilizing the sap of vegetables invaded by his kale rot organ- 
ism. He does not state the amount used nor the method of 
agitation, but it was, presumably, used liberally, and thor- 
oughly shaken. He reports no appreciable retardation of the 
enzym by it unless it be a gradual weakening after long stand- 
‘ing of fifteen days or more. His results were, therefore, sim- 
ilar to ours. | 
Van Hall (1903) used chloroform in his work upon his 
Bacillus omnivorus. His results are surprisingly at variance 
with those of all these others, since he found the addition of 
even 0.5% of chloroform destroyed all trace of activity in 
bacterial juices in one-fourth of an hour. We are unable to 
reconcile this with our experience and in view of all the evi- 
dence must believe him in error in his interpretation of results. 
A COMPARISON OF THESE GERMICIDES. 
The trials of the chemicals previously mentioned were con- 
ducted at about the same time and there were frequent op- 
portunities for comparisons. Toward the close of the work 
a special series of trials was planned as follows in order to 
reach more definite conclusions upon the comparative effect 
of these chemicals on the activity of the enzym. 
A series of ten broth cultures (10 c. c. each) five days old 
was treated as follows: 
To each of two tubes No. 1 & 1’ added 1 c. c. of purified 
chloroform making 10% solutions. To each of two tubes No. 
2 & 2’ added 0.5 c. c. of 2% formalin makine 0.1% solutions. 
To each of two tubes No. 3 & 38’ crystal of thymol (about 
0.05 g., i. e. 0.5%). To each of two tubes No. 4 & 4’ crystal 
