Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/127

 SBCART 6. 1993.)

��in

���r prising that at Lhe outset Koch spoke of the Birarnis of rods, straight or slightly curved, which he found in the intoBttoea of cholera

I patients as bacilli; and, indeed, the fact that these rotls were capable of developing into spiral filaments could only be determined by protracted observations and by making pure cultures. It seems to me that some of Koch's <»ilic8, and uspeoially Ray Lankester (see his pa|)er in Nature. Dec. '25, 1884), are making Altogether too mui;h of this verj- pardonable mistake, wLich has no special hearing upon

��the real question at issue, and cannot weaken otir confidence in the candor and scientific ac- curacy of a man to whom we are so deeply indebUd, and whose scientific reputation is established upon a firm foundation.

Ray Lankester is unquestionably right when be says that onr knowledge of the bacteria is still in its infancy ; but, so far as this knowl- edge goes, ilisdonbtftil whether any man living can speak with more authority than can the ,i3iacovercr of the tubercle bacillus.

The amplification in the figures illustrating Uiis |)aper is exactly twenty-five hundred diame- ters, and was obtained with admirable defini- tion by the use of Zeiss's one-eighteenth inch immersion objective upon a Pow- ell and Lealand's large stand, with a high eye- icce, and the draw-tube extended one inch, 'ha measurement was made by projecting the

tes flom a standard stage-micrometer, i-uled by Professor Rogers of Caralmdge, Mass., ujxin & sheet of paper in the exact position in which tbe drawing was made, by means of the same objective, eye-piece, and camera hicida. Fig. 2 was made in the same way, and represents curved bacilli, which resemble the ' comma bacillus,' and which are, perha))a, identical with those described by Prof. T. R. Lewis as

ind in the healthy human mouth. Tbe spe-

��I

I

��^^^witb tbi ^^Umndii

��cimen from which the drawing was made was one of sputum from a patient with pneumonia. I think it hardly necessary to insist that the bacilli in fig. 2 are not morphologically iden- tical with the ' comma bacillus ' of Koch as shown in fig. I ; and I may say here, that, during my somewhat extended bacteriological studies, I have never encountered an organism which seems to me to be identical with that in the slide above referred to. Should such organism be found, it would not in the le weaken the experimental evidence relating

����the specific pathogenic power claimed for this spirillum. But we must insist, in any case, that ttiis experimental evidence shall meet the most rigid exactions of science. Certainly, Koch fully appreciates this, and is doing his utmost to comply with the conditions which be has im- posed upon himself. We are therefore not able to sympathize with the captions spirit of some of his critics. Nor, iu the absence of a detailed report, are we prepared to admit that the Eng- Ush cholera commission has definitely settled the question as to the etiological r6le of the ' comma bacillus ' during the comparatively brief lirae which has been devoted to the in- vestigation; and, in view of the contradictory testimony now before us, we cannot do other- wise than consider the qnestion still subjudice, and wait patiently for detailed reports and ad- ditional experimental exidence.

George M. Stemnbero,

Surgeon U. S. army.

��LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINANTS.

A PAHi.iAMRNTART document i» not the plnce where one would natiu-nlljr lonk for facts of scientific value: but, in a return published by the English honsi; llie lltL fit December lust, there is

�� �