made next session; and also consider well who are to be returned to the next Council to represent their interests.

If the Government are anxious to make an alteration in the law, the best alteration they could make would be to bring in an Act to separate entirely the practice of pharmacy from the practice of medicine, that is, that all medicines shall be prepared and dispensed by educated chemists, and that the prescribing of remedies and the art of surgery shall be confined entirely to medical men.

what may be the use of mechanical aid to men of this class? I never see a suggestion for the prevention of accidental poisoning but that I feel thankful that the general public do not get access to our trade journals and see all these "bright ideas" for the prevention of poisoning, for they would most certainly think we were all "losing our heads.'

Sometimes I almost fancy that your correspondents must be joking when they propose such things as bells or galvanic apparatus to be attached to the bottles, for they could never If the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society were to de- have thought on the practicability of the schemes they sugvote more of their time and of their funds to establish pro-gested, if they did I am pretty sure they would never have vincial schools of pharmacy, to improve the education and recommended them. status of the country members, their time and their means would be better employed than they hitherto have been. The country members contribute a very large proportion of the income of the Society, and a very small amount has been expended for the benefit of Pharmacy in the provinces. Neither have the country members been indifferent to the claims of the Benevolent Fund, if other towns have contributed in the same proportion as Hull has. I trust the Council, for the future, will endeavour to promote harmony between town and country, and that they will also have the pluck to refuse to be dictated to or led by the nose by any medical man. The education which the present generation of chemists must receive, and the examinations which they must pass, ought to protect them from such interference, and fit them to make suitable rules for the management of their business. ATKINSON PICKERING.

Hull, August 14th, 1871.

Sir, I have but this day returned home, having spent the last fortnight in regions inaccessible even to the PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. I have thus but just seen Mr. Sandford's letter in the impression of the 5th inst., and I have thus also lost the proper moment for replying to an opponent's letter. There are, however, two points in it to which I wish to refer, even though somewhat after date.

Mr. Sandford asks the question, "Does not Mr. Schacht know that even in his own district a score of persons dealing in poisons may be found who take no precaution whatever?" To this I wish to answer that I do not know it, and that I should like to be informed if Mr. Sandford knows it, or upon what authority he makes the insinuation.

In another part of his letter Mr. Sandford refers to my charge of "treason" against certain "good men and true," who he hopes" will still command the confidence and goodwill of their fellow-members." To this I wish to say that as regards "goodwill," no one is more sincerely capable of endorsing Mr. Sandford's hopes than myself. My charge is exclusively a political charge. I have no doubt many of those whose conduct in this matter appears to me to be "treasonable" believe themselves to be patriots, and all such men have my personal good-will, now as ever, though, for the time at least, they have utterly lost my political confidence.

Only one word more. I regret this controversy as much as any one, but I refuse to accept the responsibility of the agitation. They are responsible who seek to impose a law upon the trade, five-sixths of which (as Mr. Betty shows) appear to be opposed to it. Under such circumstances agitation must follow, and, as it seems to me, must continue so long as the threat to persevere in the attempt is continued, and so long as it is human nature that five men should decline to lie down and allow one man to walk over their bodies.

Clifton, August 17th, 1871.

G. F. SCHACHT.

PLANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTAL
POISONING.

Sir,-Week after week we are continually reading some new suggestion with regard to the above, until at last, from their multiplicity, they are becoming positively sickening; and more than this, they have a bad influence on the "rising generation" of pharmaceutists, because they tend to make us lose confidence in ourselves. What may be the use of the examinations of the Pharmaceutical Society if they are not to get a superior class of men into the trade, men who fully appreciate and feel the responsibility of their situation? and

I don't believe that any mechanical arrangement that may be invented will be any sort of a safeguard after the novelty of the affair has worn away. For instance, supposing something was adopted which was intended to attract your notice by sound? What would be the result? Why, simply the same as taking up your abode near a railway station,—for the first few nights you cannot sleep with the noise, but soon you get used to it, until at length that very noise acts as a sort of lullaby, and you would find it hard to go to sleepwithout it. And so it would be with anything in the way of sound that could be adopted,-it would in time attract no notice whatever. And the same rule would apply if we trusted to the sense of touch, or any other sense, except the eye and the brain. I am sure it is quite time to say "goodbye" to all these absurd suggestions, or else we shall be running our heads against a post, if we have not done soalready. What a true fable is that of the frogs who cried out for a king! Every one knows the result of their pleadings; and if our trade at present does not bear a closeresemblance to the frogs, nothing in this changeable world ever did. We cried out for government; we have obtained it in the Pharmaceutical Society. Yet still we are not happy. We are grumbling again, and if we don't mind we shall get fettered by a government of another sort; and who knows what the result would then be? We have narrowly escaped this latter predicament, and, unless some agreement is made between ourselves before next session commences, why then look out for storms, for we shall then surely find ourselves. "out of the frying-pan into the fire." Penzance, August 22nd, 1871.

POISON BOTTLES.

C. B. A.

Sir,-Your correspondent "Scotus," in my opinion, just adds another difficulty in place of removing one, in regard to the keeping of poison bottles. The expense necessary to purchase several dozens of bayonet-catch stoppered bottles would prove an insuperable objection to many hundreds in the trade.

In regard to the india-rubber capsules he is mistaken as to the necessity to use both hands. Although I deprecate the haste he alludes to in dispensing prescriptions, and would always prefer the dispensers in my pharmacy placing bottles containing dangerous drugs fairly on the counter before them; yet if it is imperative to dispense against time, let the rubber cap be fixed to the stopper, by wrapping a bit of coarse adhesive rubber tape round the stopper, and allow the lower edge or ring of the cap to rest on the rim of the bottle, in place of over it, when the stopper can be as easily removed and replaced with one hand as any stopper not so protected. M. P. S.

X. Y. Z. is recommended to communicate with the Regis trar.

"Theta" writes to us, urging the Council to permit "Modified men," on passing the local Preliminary examination, the same privilege of presenting themselves for the Major examination as though they had passed the Minor. He had better make that application to the Council; we cannot see that we should aid his views by publishing his letter.

COMMUNICATIONS, LETTERS, etc., have been received from Mr. P. Miller, Mr. F. Pattison, Mr. R. Carter Moffat, Mr. S. H. D. Sheppard, Mr. Crafton, Mr. Bingley, Mr. J. Parrott, W. D. S., Û. B. A., A. A., "Sulphur," "Aquila.”

VESICATING INSECTS.

BY M. C. COOKE, M.A.

(Continued from page 142.)

Part III. EUROPEAN AND AFRICAN MYLABRID.E. Having already enumerated the Asiatic species, more or less economized as vesicants, it remains to give some account of the European and African species. Of the 275 species already known, at least 160 are African, so that Africa may be regarded as the head-quarters of the genus, but we are very deficient of information as to the extent to which any of them are employed as vesicants. Only three species have been recorded in the New World, one of these is certainly a Lytta, and both the others are very doubtful. It is probable that no true Mylabris is found in America.

FLORAL MYLABRIs, Mylabris floralis, Pall.; hairy, black; elytra blue-black, with two yellow bands, and two spots, of which one is at the base, the other at the apex-Pall. Icon. t. H. f. e. 8; Scheff. Icon. t. 151. f. 3. Mylabris Füsselini, Biz. Fn. G. xxx. 18; Bellb. Mon. t. ii. f. 12, 13. M. variabilis, Tausch. Mem. Mosc. iii. t. 10. f. 5. M. fasciatus, Füssel. Verz. p. 20. 398. t. i. f. 1 e.

Head hairy, black, punctate. Thorax scarcely longer than broad, black with black hairs, punctate. Scutellum black, hairy, punctate. Elytra three times as long as broad, rugoso-punctate, bands and spots evidently punctate, with scarcely the rudiments of elevated longitudinal lines, subvillous, hairs at the base longer and blue-black; a solitary spot by the scutellum, two dentate, wavy bands, one above, the other below the middle, and one spot at the apex; all the bands and spots yellow. Wings hyaline, tawny. Breast and abdomen rugoso-punctate, black, rather shining, hairy. Feet black, hairy.

Native of Germany, Switzerland and other parts of Europe.

It is stated in Christison's Dispensatory,' and some other works, that this is employed as a vesicant in some parts of Europe, under the name of Mylabris Füsselini.

TWELVE-SPOT MYLABRIS, Mylabris duodecimpunetata, Oliv.; hairy, black; elytra brick-red, with six black points in pairs.-Tausch. Mem. Mosc. iii. t. 10. f. 10; Oliv. Eney. Meth. Mylabris crocata, Oliv. Ent. iii. t. 2. f 23; Billb. Mon. t. 7. f. 8. M. cyanescens, Illig. Meloe crocata, Pall. Icon. p. 87. t. E. Lytta lutea, Pall. Iter. p. 222.

Head hairy, black, punctate. Thorax a little longer than broad, hairy, black, punctate. Scutellum black. Elytra three times as long as broad, rugose, marginate, with scarce the rudiments of elevated lines, yellowish, with six black points in pairs, of which two are before the middle, two about the midle, the fifth behind the middle, at the suture, and the sixth near the apex. Breast and abdomen black, hairy, punctate. Feet black, hairy.

synonymous with the M. crocata and the M. duodecimpunetata of Olivier.

VARIABLE MYLABRIS, Mylabris variabilis, Pail.; villous; black; elytra shining black, with three ochraceous bands, the first interrupted, and the upper margin coloured.-Pall. Ic. p. 81. t. E. f. 7 ; Oliv. iii. p. 19. t. 2. f. 14 b; Billb. Mon. t. 3. f. 3. Meloe fasciatus, Füssel. Verz. p. 20. T. f. 1 c.

Head black, hairy, punctate. Thorax scarcely longer than broad, black. Scutellum black, hairy. Elytra three times as long as broad, shining black, somewhat hairy, hairs very short and black, with three ochraceous bands, the first at the shoulder interrupted, the second and third waved, the black apex also broad with the margin yellowish or ochiraceous, roughly punctate, with four elevated longitudinal lines. Wings hyaline, tawny at the apex. Breast and abdomen black, punctate, hairy. Feet black, hairy.

Native of Russia, Germany, and Switzerland. Included by Moquin-Tandon with vesicants on the authority of Dr. Bretonneau (Annales des Sc. Nat. xiii. 1828. p. 78).

SPOTTED MYLABRIS, Mylabris maculata, Oliv.; black; elytra rufous, with two black spots at the base, and posteriorly two broad, black, somewhat interrupted bands.-Oliv. Ent. iii. 47. t. i. f. 9; Billb. Mon. t. 6. f. 10-14; Tausch. Mem. Mose. t. x. f. 7. M. bimaculata, Oliv. Ency. Meth. viii. p. 93; Jacq. Duv. Gen. Col. iii. t. 93. f. 463.

Smaller than M. pustulata. The body is generally black, the elytra are rufous, marked towards the base with two black spots, at the middle with a broad band, nearly interrupted at the suture and narrowed towards the margin; near the apex another band, equally black, slightly dentate.

Native of Russia, Egypt and the East. This species is stated by Gervais and Van Bencden (Med. Zool.) to be employed in Greece.

OLIVE-TREE MYLABRIS, Mylabris Oleæ, Cast. ; black; elytra brick-red; apex and two bands black, the foremost abbreviated laterally, the second entire, the margin not sinuated.-Cast. Hist. Nat. ii. 1840, p. 269; Erichs. Wagn. Reis. iii. 1841. p. 183. t. 8; Lucas, Exp. Alg. p. 387.

Antennæ black. Body black, rather shining. Head as broad as the thorax, closely punctate. Thorax laterally slightly rounded, punctate, subrugulose. Elytra smooth, densely and finely punctate, brick-red, with three black bands, the first scarcely touching the margin, the second in the middle of the elytra, the third apical, all with their margins nearly entire, the space before and behind the middle band nearly equal, the basal not more than half as broad. Length 10-12 lines.

This species is a native of Algeria, Tangiers and Morocco. M. Guérin-Méneville has named it as a vesicating insect, on whose authority it is cited by Moquin-Tandon (Med. Zool. p. 135). It is a large species, being equal to the majority of specimens of M. phalerata.

In Mozambique, Peters. (Reise, 1862) enumerates and describes eleven species, of which it is hinted Native of Hungary, Russia, France, etc. that some are employed as vescants. Those named This species is misquoted by Moquin-Tandon are M. catenata, M. dicincta, M. pruinosa, M. rufi(Med. Zool. p. 135) as M. cyanescens, where it is crus, M. serricornis, M. tettensis, M. tricolor, M. tristated to have been recommended by M. Farines, a furca, M. tripartita, M. tristigma, M. lanuginosa, pharmaceutist of Perpignan. In Gemminger and and the M. Burmeisteri of Bertolini. Herold's Catalogue, doubtless on the authority of Marseul, the M. cyanescens of Illiger is quoted as THIRD SERIES, No. 63.

The observations of Mr. J. W. Wood in the PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL, 19th August, 1871, upon the tincture of kino, U. S. Pharmacopoeia, are worthy which has been discovered at Lüneburg, and which, of recognition and consideration. The inconveni- therefore, has been named Lüneburgite. Now, if ences arising from the gelatinizing tendency of the the products of sea-water, formed by evaporation, tincture are equally applicable to the form of the contain phosphoric acid, boracic acid and fluorine, P.B. As a rule, tincture of kino is not in constant it stands to reason that these substances must oridemand, but it is frequently ordered in combination ginally have been in the sea-water; this had never with other remedies during a prevalence of diarrhoea, yet been ascertained, but these substances are necesmore especially at this season of the year, and many sary for the formation of fish-bones, which can only practitioners prefer it to catechu. Tincture of kino be produced from the sea-water, as fish and their food is also used as an adjunct to mouth-washes, and any method of making or keeping it so that it shall remain unaltered will be a desirable acquisition.

would be constant, as I have never succeeded in-Buchner's Repert. für Pharm. viii. p. 484.

keeping a larger quantity, especially when the bottle was only partly filled. The addition of glyce

rine, as suggested by Mr. J. W. Wood, cannot, I HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF PHARMACY

Laguna wrote in 1566:-"Hacese el agua marina dulce ò a lo menos salobre y potable colandola por arena, destilandola en alambiques," etc. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Spaniards, who figure prominently in the history of syphilis, assisted in the introduction of mercury and of the various ligna.

And here commences the true special history of Spanish pharmacy, still intimately united to the art of healing. We now meet with a very peculiar position of affairs. The Arabs had conquered part of Spain; Hispania had become a Roman province; Arabs and Romans predominated alternately; Arabs and Spaniards united to Mozarabs. The remnants of mysticism, transferred from the Greeks to the Ro- The bath forms a peculiar speciality in Spain. mans, superstition, the self-illusion and deception The Romans had popularized the use of baths in this of the magicians and Arabic alchemists, had to be province of theirs; they erected solid and spacious destroyed; the best medical schools were filled by buildings for the purpose, the remains of which still Arabs, following the Arabo-Greek system; Hippo- exist. The Arabs adopted the custom; but the miscrates' system, modified by a little Galeno-Arabism, chief created by the meeting of the two sexes prevailed in medicine. From the ninth to the eleventh induced Alonso VI. to prohibit the use of public century the Arabian schools flourished, the Arabian baths and to destroy the buildings. Until the physicians considerably increased the number of eighteenth century baths and mineral springs have remedies, and excelled in most complicated prescrip- been much neglected, which is the more surprising tions. Galen's theory of putrefaction, originally as the peninsula is peculiarly rich in medicinal Aristotle's idea, necessarily domineered over the springs. More recently this great mistake has been whole of medicine. But with the expulsion of the somewhat rectified, but analyses of many important Moors from Spain, under Ferdinand the Catholic springs are still wanting. Many foreign and native and his queen Isabella, the influence of the Arabs mineral waters are sold by pharmacists in Madrid and the Spanish Moors gradually died away, al- and other towns. though it can be traced to the sixteenth century, when the celebrated physician of Philip II., Franz Valles of Covarubias, formerly professor at the University of Alcala de Henares, became one of its most strenuous supporters. At the time of the Saracens pharmacy became separated from the study of medicine in the renowned school of Alexandria. The Valentians and Catalans were amongst the first European people who fostered pharmacy. wild bees in the woods of North America. Bee-hunting Considerable quantities of honey are produced by the The enlargement of the materia medica,-beginning is a most fascinating pursuit in the backwoods; the from the time of Alphonse the Wise, 1252, and to which the Crusades assisted,-furnished many subjects for investigation; chemistry gained more positive ground, it became incorporated into pharmacy, and the union between the latter and the healing art became more and more intimate.

This historical state of things no doubt had its origin in the circumstance that the most celebrated magicians and alchemists were of Arabian origin, while the most renowned physicians were either Jews or Arabs or Moorish Spaniards. The great acquisitions reserved for future centuries were the gradual amalgamation of a certain knowledge of remedies with technical pharmacy and the enrichment of the materia medica by chemical and pharmaceutical preparations. In this respect the time of the Abasides of the Orient stands out most praiseworthy. Curt Sprengel's Arabum Res Herbaria' is our great authority of the Arabic influence; also the works of Monte Cassino, who had lived for forty years among the Arabs, and who in his book De Gradibus,' 1536, recorded all Arabian remedies. The importation of many new drugs from recently discovered parts of the globe, and the foundation of botanical gardens, are proofs of special advancement. Among the most important discoveries of new drugs that of the cinchona bark in 1638 stands foremost, and it is well known that the Spaniards were the first to import it into Europe.

(To be continued.)

THE HONEY TRADE.

BY P. L. SIMMONDS.

(Continued from page 168.)

returning bee laden with sweets is watched to its home, and 150 lb. of honey are sometimes found in a single tree. The bee is a more adventurous colonist than man, and is always the precursor of cultivation in the Transatlantic forests. The keeping of bees is an object of domestic attention also in Canada, where some 10,000 or 15,000 hives indicate the produce of honey and wax. In Australia the natives are also very skilful in beehunting, and they adopt the following ingenious plan them having caught an Australian bee, an insect not to discover their hives. A party of ten or twelve of much larger than our common fly, attach to its body, with a gum that exudes from the mimosa, a little light white down, taken from the eagle or ibis. This is done as much for the purpose of causing the bee to fly slowly as to make the object as large and white as possible; they then, with a simultaneous shout, start off, running to and fro, following the movements of the bee for more than a mile, until the insect lights on its hive in the hollow branch of a gum-tree. In this manner the blacks collect abundance of honey, and the Australian honey greatly excels our finest heath honey.

The climate of Tasmania is most favourable for bees.

The flowers of the cucalypti and mimosa furnish food
for them, and the honey sent to the different European
Exhibitions was much admired. In some parts of the
colony, as at Perth, Bothwell, Ross, etc., old tea-chests
and boxes are used for beehives and honey is procured
by the ton. It is sold in the interior from 4d. to 6d. a
pound, and is used by the settlers either in comb, or as
mead or in the manufacture of beer. Swarms of bees
which have escaped take possession of hollow trees; oc-
hole in a gum-tree.
casionally more than 100 lb. of honey are taken from a

The first botanical garden was founded under Philip II. J. Pedro Esteve investigated the plants of the kingdom of Valencia; and Don Juan Fragoso, The Arabs collect the bees in the bark of the cork-tree, of Toledo, chirurgeon to the same king, travelled formed into a cylinder, which they smear with honey to for the same purpose with Don Francisco Herman- entice the bees to enter; they then close up the extredez through the province of Seville. The Spaniards mities, leaving only a small opening as a passage for the claim the discovery of making sea water palatable swarm; these tubes are extended lengthways on the by distillation in the sixteenth century. Dr. Andrés' ground and surrounded with thick bushes. It is almost

incredible how much honey and wax they procure from them; the first serves them for food, and the latter is an article of commerce.

number might be doubled, if care were taken to provide at hand those plants from which the bees derive their honey, and which abound in the forests, the meadows The Apis fasciata of Latreille appears to have been do- and the fields of colza, etc. These different plants form mesticated in Egypt ages before the hive bee of Europe a rich spoil, from which this comparatively new industry was known. Niebuhr informs us it is extensively culti- might derive great advantage. Nature and art mutually vated there at present, and that he met on the Nile, be- combine to produce the different kinds of honey and low Mansura, a convoy of 4000 hives, which were being wax, which afford a large profit to the country. The transported from a region where the flowers had passed rearing of bees is extensively carried on in the several to one where the spring was later. The domesticated parts of European Russia, particularly in the central bee of Egypt affords of honey no very limited supply, and southern governments, as well as in the Polish, and but it is rather to the wild species of the same continent, in Transcaucasian provinces. This insect acclimatizes inhabiting the endless forests, that the greater propor- up to a very high latitude, even in Siberia. It was long tion of honey is derived, the quantity in some regions thought that the climate of the latter country was utterly being remarkably abundant; so much so that various unsuitable for the rearing of bees; but experiments made tribes pay their yearly tribute with it. Sir J. E. Alex- at the commencement of the present century in the ander, in his expedition of discovery into the interior of governments of Tomsk, Omsk, and Jenisseisk, have Africa, informs us that beeswax on the Orange river proved the contrary. It has greatly suffered, however, could be procured in very great abundance. A Namaqua, in some provinces, from the destruction of the forests; who had a waggon, assured him (and he had no reason for the bee prefers well-wooded districts, where it is proto doubt his word) that on a honey hunt he had filled tected from the wind. The honey procured from the his waggon with skin-sacks of honey alone, and the side linden-tree (Tilia europea) is only obtained at the little planks in two or three days. It is to be regretted town of Kowna, on the river Niemen, in Lithuania, that the name of the bee is not noticed. In 1830 which is surrounded by an extensive forest of these trees, no less than 242 tons of beeswax, worth £100 per ton, and where the rearing occupies the principal attention was exported from the Gambia, and it appears that of the inhabitants. The Jews of Poland furnish a close in the Mandingo country honey is retailed at 2s. 6d. per imitation of this honey, by bleaching the common kinds gallon. A considerable quantity of wax is also imported in the open air during frosty weather.

from the Gold Coast. The wax is sometimes attacked by the larvae of a species of tinea, and the weight consequently greatly diminished: this robbery might, no doubt, easily be prevented.

(To be continued.)

ACTION OF HEAT ON PROTOPLASMIC LIFE.

BY F. CRACE-CALVERT, F.R.S.

Mr. W. Tegetmeier, at his apiary, Muswell Hill, has introduced the Apis ligustica, or Ligurian bee, an abundant honey collector, which has also been introduced successfully into Germany. The principal species of Those investigators of germ-life who favour the theory bees kept for domestic purposes are the following:-of spontaneous generation have assumed that a temperaApis mellifica, Linn., or the common hive bee of Europe, and which has also been introduced into the United States of America and New Zealand; A. ligustica, Spinola, kept in some parts of Italy; A. fasciata, Latr. in Egypt, and in some parts of Asia Minor; A. unicolor, Fab. in Madagascar; A. indica, Linn. at Bengal; 4. Adansonis, Latr., at Senegal.

The production of honey and wax in Austria, according to the imperial statistical bureau, was in 1854, 547,700 cwt. of honey, and 54,770 cwt. of wax, of the value of about £1,000,000, but as this includes only the produce which enters into commerce, and four out of every five bee-keepers consume their own production, Austria may fairly be said to realize annually £3,000,000 from beeculture. In the ten years ending with 1859, the imports of honey and honey-water into Austria have ranged from 3000 to 25,000 cwt. per annum, of which about 2000 cwt. were re-exported. Of wax, in the same period, the imports averaged about 5000 or 6000 cwt., of which about 2000 cwt. were re-exported. The total number of bee-hives in Austria in 1854 was returned at 2,733,000, giving an average of 270 to the square mile, and producing for the same average area 58 cwt. of honey, and 6 of wax, worth 945 florins. The rearing of bees is carried on most extensively in the Vayvode, and the Temesia, the Banat, Croatia, Slavonia and Transylvania, on the frontier of Galicia, in Styria, Carinthia and Carniola. In the other provinces this trade is of little consequence or extent.

In the States of the Zollverein, about 7000 or 8000 cwt. of wax are imported annually, of which about 2000 cwt. are re-exported. The import of honey is not specifically mentioned in the tariff; but considering the area, population and industry, the value of the honey and wax produced in the States may be estimated in round numbers at £2,000,000 in value, and with that imported at about £2,500,000. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, there were returned 49,146 hives in 1855, and 75,111 in 1861. In Würtemberg there are about 100,000 hives; but this

ture of 212° Fahr., or the boiling-point of the fluid which they experimented upon, was sufficient to destroy all protoplasmic life, and that the life they subsequently observed in these fluids was developed from non-living matter.

I therefore made several series of experiments, in the hope that they might throw some light on the subject.

The first series was made with a sugar solution, the second with an infusion of hay, the third with solution of gelatine, and the fourth with water that had been in contact with putrid meat. The hay and putrid-meat solutions were taken because they had often been used by other investigators; sugar was employed, being a welldefined organic compound free from nitrogen, which can easily be obtained in a state of purity; and gelatine was used as a nitrogenized body which can be obtained pure and is not coagulated by heat.

To carry out the experiments I prepared a series of small tubes made of very thick and well-annealed glass, each tube about four centimetres in length, and having a bore of five millimetres. The fluid to be operated upon was introduced into them, and left exposed to the atmosphere for sufficient length of time for germ-life to be largely developed. Each tube was then hermetically scaled and wrapped in wire gauze, to prevent any accident to the operator in case of the bursting of any of the tubes. They were then placed in an oil-bath, and gradually heated to the required temperature, at which they were maintained for half an hour.

Sugar Solution.-A solution of sugar was prepared by dissolving 1 part of sugar in 10 part of water. This solution was made with common water, and exposed all night to the atmosphere, so that life might impregnate it. The fluid was prepared on the 1st of November, 1870, introduced into tubes on the 2nd, and allowed to remain five days. On the 7th of November twelve tubes were kept without being heated, twelve were heated to 200° F., twelve to 300° F., and twelve to 400° F.

The contents of the tubes were microscopically ex