Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/96

92 an unusually sterile soil and fail to produce the expected results. In other words, we can not tell what will be the output of bacterial poison from a given dose of living bacteria. But the bacterial poison itself, when isolated from the living bacteria, is a definite pathogenic agent, which we can measure, dilute, and test like any other potent drug. Those who know that bacteria are so minute as to be invisible except under high microscopic powers will naturally ask by what unimaginable accuracy of grinding they can be broken up so as to release their intracellular toxins. The answer shows once more how close is the dependence of advance in one department of research upon discovery in another department apparently quite unrelated, and how impossible it is to foretell in what ways abstract inquiry may bear upon the most important practical problems. These infinitesimal organisms are crushed in liquid air, which is at once an absolutely neutral fluid and one giving the exceedingly low temperature essential for success. Thus an important step in the treatment of disease becomes possible through the previous success of efforts to reduce the most refractory gases to the liquid condition. The intense cold of liquid air has no effect upon the vitality of bacteria. After the most prolonged immersion they propagate themselves with unabated vigor as soon as they are again placed in normal conditions. But when frozen hard in liquid air these almost inconceivably minute cells are completely broken up by trituration. The completely triturated mass may be placed in the proper medium and raised to the proper temperature, but there is no sign of bacterial growth. The poisonous juices, however, remain and possess, as has just been demonstrated, the same toxic properties as when they are directly elaborated inside the human body by the living bacteria. We have, in fact, the best guarantee that nothing has happened beyond their mechanical release in the fact that at j the temperature of liquid air all chemical activities are in abeyance. The mechanical disintegration of these microscopical cells at the temperature of liquid air is not so simple a matter as it may seem. For its explanation the biologist must again apply to the physicist who has furnished him with this new and potent implement.

has cabled information from New Zealand reporting that the Morning, relief vessel to the British Antarctic exploration ship Discovery, arrived at Lyttelton on March 25. She reports finding the Discovery on January 23 in MacMurdo Bay (Victoria Land).

Commander Scott, of the Discovery, supplies the following report of the voyage up to the meeting with the Morning. The Discovery entered the ice pack on January 2 or 3 in latitude 67° south. Cape Adare was reached on January 9, but from there a heavy gale and ice delayed the expedition, which did not reach Wood Bay till January 18. A landing was effected on the 20th in an excellent harbor situated in latitude 76° 30′ south. A record of the voyage was deposited at Cape Crozier on the twenty-second. The Discovery then proceeded along the Barrier, within a few cables' length, examining the edge and making repeated soundings. In longitude 165° the Barrier altered its character and trended northwards. Sounding here showed that the Discovery was in shallow water. From the edge of the Barrier high snow slopes rose to an extensive, heavily glaciated land, with occasional bare precipitous peaks. The expedition followed the coast line as far as latitude 76°, longitude 152° 30′. The heavy pack formation of the young ice caused the expedition to seek winter quarters in Victoria Land.