death take place, when the number of the bacteria is relatively inconsiderable; the vascular ruptures then become of extreme importance; they are found especially in the walls of the heart of the dog.

It now remains, in order to complete this theory, to examine and explain the lesions of the lymphatic system. The following are the facts which have been derived from my experiments:

Three cases are possible:

1. The Anthrax was transmitted by inoculation to an animal which died without showing vascular ruptures.

2. The Anthrax was transmitted to the animal by injection direct into a vessel.

3. The Anthrax was transmitted either by inoculation or by intravascular injection to an animal which in the course of the malady showed more or less numerous vascular ruptures.

In the first case researches made on the fresh or hardened ganglia and by means of sections, showed no bacteria except in those situated in the course of the lymphatics, proceeding from the inoculated spot, where they were found in immense numbers.

In the second case no ganglion showed the presence of bacteria in the sinus; the only ones met with were contained in the blood-vessels of the follicles.

In the third case all the ganglia situated in the course of the lymphatics, proceeding from the points where the vascular ruptures existed, were gorged with bacteria; the infiltrations in the neighbourhood of the rupture showed heaps of them, formed of long entangled filaments, and the ganglia had a quantity of them in their sinus, which augmented with the age of the rupture.

These three cases are easily interpreted; they are reducible, in fact, to one. The mode of action of the bacteria is always the same. Take the first (that of inoculation) as a typical case.

When an animal has been inoculated, from that moment until its death it constantly shows the presence of bacteria in one or other parts of its economy-not latent bacteria in the state of the germ, but entire and articulated, and visible to the microscope. They are always found in the connective tissue adjacent to the inoculated spot, and their number is greater in proportion as the period of inoculation is distant from that of observation. The infiltration or œdema which they provoke, is propagated in the direction of the lymphatics which collect and convey them to the ganglion. They penetrate this organ, as do all finely pulverized solid substances, as red-lead injected under the skin and tattoo powders; I have found them in considerable numbers (about ten in the field of the microscope), five hours after an inoculation has been made, at two centimetres distance from an axillary ganglion, in the pulp of this ganglion. Once in a ganglion they multiply, produce inflammation, and a more ready discharge of the substances inclosed in the lymphatic sinus; their multiplication by elongation is also a mode of progression; they finally issue forth through the efferent vessels and reach the following ganglion, or rather the blood-vessels, where they multiply rapidly and where they

remain.

From the instant that the bacteria penetrate into the blood (by taking the blood of a rabbit inoculated 71⁄2 hours previously from three punctures made in the inside surface of each fore-leg, and injecting fifteen drops of it in the jugular of another rabbit, I caused the death of the latter) the phenomena are as though the injection had been made in the vessels, that is, as in the second case, allowance being made for the parasites constantly supplied by the ganglia which were the first receptacles.

Finally, in the case in which vascular ruptures supervene after the penetration of the bacteria into the blood, each rupture lets a greater or less number of bacteria escape, which there act as true, deep inoculations, which are followed by the same disorders as in subcutaneous inoculation, that is to say, infiltration, penetration into the ganglia, and return to the blood. But the disorders in this case are so numerous and severe that the animal dies before the capillary emboli are formed.

The knowledge of these facts may throw some light on the mode in which the bacteria penetrate in the case of spontaneous Anthrax; it enables us to determine in what part of the economy and through what channel the parasites are introduced.*

Onchopora hirsuta.-Mr. W. H. Weightman, of the Liverpool Microscropical Society, has shown that, besides the common tubes, described and figured by Mr. Busk in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science' for 1855, there are also at the base of the lowest internode a number of radical tubes, which Mr. Busk seems to have overlooked. They are each upwards of one-tenth of an inch in length, hollow like the others, but spirally twisted, and not jointed. The extremity of each of these radical tubes is dilated, and of a crozier-like form, and of a much darker colour than the shaft. Within the crozierlike tip there appears to be a dark secretion, which in the living condition was probably fluid, but the purpose of which he is quite ignorant of.

The calcareous cell of Onchopora is somewhat granular in substance, and is minutely punctured, and acts with some degree of energy on polarized light, but not so much so as the corneous tubes, which are quite brilliant when viewed with polarized light; the radical tubes are somewhat less so.

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66

Spore Nomenclature. In regard to an article on this subject in the Bot. Zeitung,' by Messrs. A. de Bary and E. Strasbürger, the 'Bulletin' of the French Botanical Society (vol. xxv. p. 32) says:- The Acetabularia furnishes a new example of conjugation between zoospores, interesting because of the terminology it gives the authors an opportunity of proposing. The biciliated and sexual antherozoids which are capable of copulation receive from them the name of 'gametes,' and the products of their copulation that of zygote,' instead of isospore or zygospore. They are anxious to remove from this name the rootspore, reserving this term for the reproductive body which does not result from a fecundation."

* M. Toussaint, in 'Comptes Rendus,' vol. lxxxvi. p. 978.

The Causes of Buzzing in Insects.-The number of Comptes Rendus' for 7th October last contains a note by M. Jousset de Bellesme on M. Perez's paper on this subject which appeared in an earlier number, and which is translated at p. 276. The note is in substance identical with that which is quoted from the Times' at p. 278, and as, although somewhat more precise, it includes no additional facts, it is unnecessary to reproduce it here. A translation appears in Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' for November.

The Germ Hypothesis of Putrefaction. Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., delivered during the present year at the Society of Arts a series of six (Cantor) Lectures on Putrefactive Changes and on the Preservation of Animal Substances." The lectures concluded with a reference to the Germ Hypothesis, of which the following is an abstract :This has been very differently treated by different authors. On one side it has been subjected to derision, on the other extolled to childish adulation. It may be said to have started with the observation of Redi, that the exclusion of dead animal matter from something in the air, which could apparently be filtered out of the air, arrests putrefactive change as it might arrest the introduction of the ova or germs of other living forms in the same substance. We have seen in our experiments that exclusion of air does, for a time, under some circumstances, interfere with commencing putrefaction.

This looks like truthful demonstration. Yet still it is a very easy thing to oppose the hypothesis altogether. We can show, that animal tissue decomposes in the closest chamber; when imbedded in hard paraffin; when coal-gas or other negative gas takes the place of air. All these facts indicate that air is not wanted either to act itself, or to convey particles or germs.

But it may be urged on the side of the hypothesis, that the dead animal substances, before the time when they were subjected to these exclusive tests, had been exposed to the infection of germs.

To this there is an experimental answer. Here are specimens which after having been subjected to the air itself, under pressure, had not decomposed; and others which have been exposed to the air, but because they are charged with a small part of a salt, or gas, or vapour, have not decomposed. Thus a substance may be exposed to the air and may not change. All our salted provisions may be used as arguments in support of this truth.

There will again be a ready answer to suit the hypothesis, namely, that under such conditions germs cannot live. The conditions are fatal to life in any form. How can germs live in cyanogen, or sulphurous acid, or under atmospheric pressure, beyond what is natural?

The answers are plausible, and the germ hypothesis might be defended possibly on them if there was nothing else to be said. But there is more behind. We can arrest life in action and still have decomposition. If I were to put a firm ligature round one of my limbs, and so completely cut off the supply of blood, I should do the

* Vol. lxxxvii. p. 535.

most effectual thing for cutting off the supply of germs into that limb, if germs really do enter it. Thereby, I ought to stop decomposition of that limb, for I have cut off both oxygen and blood from it. Nevertheless, the muscles of the limb will of a certainty decompose. My explanation why the limb decomposes, under those circumstances, is clear enough. I would say that I have left the water of the tissue subjected to agents in the blood itself, fibrine, and blood-cells, which are alone sufficient to decompose the water of the tissues, and that as I have cut off the supply of blood that was entering the limb, the liberated hydrogen, in the nascent state, combines with the nitrogen and other elements of the nitrogenous textures, and sets up the series of decompositions-or re-compositions-called putrefactive changes.

Is there, then, no truth at all in the germ hypothesis? There is, I think, a germ of truth. I believe it is probable, from the two circumstances, that filtration of air does, in some structures, check putrefactive change, and that in these instances new forms of life are developed. From these two circumstances it is, I repeat, probable that there may exist in the air minute organic particles which, coming into contact with the water of collodial structures and fluids, are capable, like fibrine and blood-cells, of starting the decomposition of water, and so exciting putrefaction. Germinal particles may thus be added to other and much more abundant materials capable of exciting the change. This is all I have to say, from what I have seen, in support of the germ hypothesis; and indeed, in saying so much I am rather acknowledging certain facts which, at this moment, do not admit of other explanation, than putting forth an affirmative opinion.*

"Hullite."-At the Dublin Meeting of the British Association, Mr. E. T. Hardman, F.C.S., read a paper on this hitherto undescribed mineral, which occurs in abundance near Belfast, in the basalt forming the neck of a Miocene volcano. The author proposed to call it Hullite, after Professor Hull, in commemoration of the valuable work he has done in elucidating the microscopic mineralogy of the basalts of Ireland. Professor Hull has examined the microscopic structure of the mineral and of the rock in which it occurs, and has described the appearance presented by the mineral. Under the microscope it is of an amber-brown colour, nearly opaque. It permeates the whole rock, filling the interstices, and enclosing the other minerals. It appears very much to assume the character of chlorite, and is undoubtedly a distinct mineral, and not a product of alteration.

The Revivification of Diatoms.-Referring to the communication of M. Petit (see p. 26) to the French Botanical Society, M. Bureau reminded the Society that some plants relatively high in organization, such as certain species of Selaginella and Ferns, were capable of being revivified after a prolonged desiccation in an oven heated to 60° C. He had made experiments which left no doubt on the subject.

M. Duchartre observed that a distinction must be made between the experiments of M. Bureau and those of M. Petit on the Diatomaceæ. It appeared to him, according to M. Petit's communication, that it is

* Journal of the Society of Arts,' vol. xxvi. p. 971.

necessary, in order that the diatoms should be desiccated without perishing, that they should be enveloped in the mud, and that consequently the desiccation of these Algæ does not take place in the open air. M. Petit replied that that was in effect his opinion, and that he had remarked in the course of his observations that all the diatoms which were in the open air without the intermediary of a protecting body to retard the desiccation were dead, and that all his efforts to recall them to life were in vain.*

The Diatomacea of the Arctic Expedition.-Dr. Dickie reports in the Journal of the Linnean Society (No. 98, Bot.) on the Alga collected during the last Arctic Expedition, by Captain Feilden, Dr. Moss, and Mr. Hart, beyond lat. 78° N., including the Diatomaceæ. The localities where they were gathered are first given in numbered series, after which comes a list of all the genera and species, with numbers corresponding to the localities attached. This saves needless repetition, is available for data concerning distribution, and at a glance shows paucity or frequency of genera and species.

The Diatomaceæ observed represent thirty-one genera, and amount to seventy species; most of them are marine, the fresh-water species being few in number. The presence of these minute organisms, with their exquisitely sculptured siliceous investments, is a point of much interest in relation to the presence of certain forms of animal life. Dr. Dickie has repeatedly received masses of such, resembling pieces of fat or of sodden bread, from ice-floes in various parts of the Arctic Sea; and in the alimentary canal of bivalve Mollusca from the same quarter preserved in spirits, he has found abundance of marine diatoms.

Where these occur (and they are generally plentiful) this implies the possible presence of animal life, the lower forms of which are preyed upon by the higher; and thus we have a very notable and interesting chain of dependence. It is not, therefore, a matter for surprise that sixteen species of bivalves were collected beyond 80° N. by the naturalists of the Expedition.

P. T. Cleve, in a communication to the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1873, states that the entire number of diatoms found in the Arctic Sea is 181; the species already enumerated, excluding the twelve freshwater, amount to about one-third. From the same paper it would appear that those found near Spitzbergen are far more numerous than those now recorded.

Melicerta ringens.-Mr. F. A. Bedwell has re-examined the mastax with the oil-immersion. His letter to the Secretary will be found with the Proceedings,' p. 391.

The Oil-Immersion Objective.-Professor Hamilton Smith contributes an article on the to the American Quarterly Microscopical Journal.' He" has no hesitation in saying, and all who have looked through it agree with him, that up to this time it is the best foreign-made objective he has seen;" but, whilst "begging not to be understood as depreciating it," he maintains, however, that a ro and Bull. de la Soc. Bot. de France,' vol. xxiv. p. 369.

† American Quar. Mic. Journal,' vol. i. p. 28.