Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume I Part 66

Dr Eberth, of Zurich, states that he has found on ordinary sweat small oval-shaped bacteria which are frequently united in strings of two or three, and endowed with rather active movements. The author thinks that they very likely conduce to produce certain chemical modifications of sweat.

Drs Ferrier and Sanderson appear to have satisfactorily proved that fungi are not developed from microzymes, and that their apparent a.s.sociation is one of juxtaposition only. They give the following reasons for adopting this conclusion:--(1) The quick appearance of _torula_ cells in Pasteur's solution whenever it is exposed to the air, and the rapid development and luxuriant fructification of the higher form (_penicillium_) show that so far as the chemical composition of the liquid is concerned, there exist in it all the conditions favorable to the process. (2) When precautions are taken to prevent contamination by impure surfaces or liquids, the development which ends in _penicillium_ goes on from first to last without the appearance of microzymes. (3) Whenever it is possible to impregnate the test-liquid with microzymes, without at the same time introducing torula cells or germs, the development of the former begins and continues by itself without any transformation into the latter. Thus _fungi_ are not developed, notwithstanding the presence of microzymes in the same liquid in which, microzymes being absent, but air having access, they appear with the greatest readiness. As we have already seen the germs of bacteria exist largely in air; the experiments of Hiller, of Berlin, would seem to negative the theory of Ferrier and Sanderson, as they tend to show that bacteria have little influence on putrefaction.

We are indebted to Dr Lionel Beale for these ill.u.s.trations, which are taken from his very interesting work on 'Disease Germs.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Hiller's experiments tend to show that putrefaction is independent of the presence of bacteria, that bacteria can develop in liquids such as urine without producing its decomposition, and that the degree of their development and the rate of their multiplication depend upon the amount of a.s.similable material.

The following is the definition given to the word 'microzyme' (which occurs above) by its originator, Dr Sanderson: "I proposed the word 'microzyme' as a convenient general term for the first organic forms which present themselves in organic nitrogenous liquids when about to undergo spontaneous decomposition."

From the experiments of Bechamp it appears that under some circ.u.mstances the mother of vinegar, a conglomeration of microzymes, can be transformed into bacteria, and under other circ.u.mstances into a cellular ferment which can excite normal alcoholic fermentation in cane sugar. Subsequent researches have shown that the converse of this is also true, and that the cellular ferment may be transformed into microzymes and bacteria.

A mixture of starch and yeast kept at a temperature of 24 to 35 soon liquefies, and the yeast undergoes remarkable changes. The cells swell, become transparent, and gradually disappear. Myriads of microzymes of great agility spring into existence, then vibrios appear, and as these increase the microzymes diminish. The vibrios in their turn are succeeded by myriads of bacteria, and finally the bacteria disappear, leaving nothing but microzymes, single or coupled together. During these changes a small quant.i.ty of gas is disengaged, no butyric acid is formed, and but little acetic or lactic acids.

As then the mother of vinegar when changed into bacteria becomes lactic or butyric ferment, and when transformed into cellular matter becomes alcoholic ferment, and as beer yeast becomes lactic or butyric ferment when reduced to microzymes, vibrios, or bacteria, it is evident that the property of being a ferment of any particular nature does not depend essentially upon the nature of the ferment, but upon its organisation or structure.

A contributor to the 'Medical Times and Gazette' of February 2nd, 1878, advances the opinion that many of the bacteria are only parts of a plant which has other forms and other modes of growth and propagation when not confined to the living organism or to fluids, and regards the bacterium as a transitional or provisional and not as a permanent form, but an abnormal phase of life thrust upon the plant by accident.

=BACTERIA AS ORIGINATORS OF DISEASE.=--The researches of many eminent microscopists and physiologists afford abundant evidence of the presence of bacteria in the blood of persons affected with various infectious diseases. For instance, Core and Feltz, of Strasbourg, found a linked bacterium in the blood of those attacked with septicaemia, typhoid, and puerperal fevers. The same investigators also discovered bacteria in the blood of patients suffering from scarlet fever; this blood when injected into the veins of rabbits set up a feverish disease that proved fatal.

Again, in the blood of man and the sheep attacked with smallpox, a bacterium of the globular or sphere-shaped variety was found by Keber, Hallier, and Zurn.

Bacteria have also been found in the blood during measles, and in the splenic apoplexy of sheep and cattle. They have likewise been identified in diphtheritical exudations both from the kidneys and womb, as well as in the blood during an attack of rheumatic fever, and they are undoubtedly present in the same fluid during many feverish disorders. Drs Lewis and Cunningham failed to discover them in the blood of cholera patients.

Professors Cohn and Koch stand prominently forward as the advocates of the germ theory of disease by bacteria. Professor Cohn divides the bacteria into groups, genera, and species, and a.s.signs to each species a different function.

For instance, he considers the ferment of contagion to be due to the presence of a variety of the sphere-shaped bacterium--one of his groups.

He divides the whole group into three--the chromogen, zymogen, and pathogen, the bacteria of pigmentation, of fermentation, and of contagion, respectively. He says those organisms are exceedingly minute, darkish or coloured granules, so small as to be immeasurable. They frequently present the appearance of beaded chains or the form of aggregations. They are motionless and are occasionally found with the _Bacterium termo_ in putrefying organic liquids.

Messrs Chauveau and Sanderson have discovered a bacterium in vaccine lymph which believers in the germ theory cla.s.s among the pathogen bacteria, and which they have named the _Micrococcus vaccinae_. Amongst the pathogen bacteria they also include the _Micrococcus dipthericus_ and _Micrococcus septicus_, the former found in the epithelium of certain organs during certain forms of pyaemia, and the latter in the miliary eruption of typhus, pyaemia, and other diseases. The chromogen or pigmentary bacteria have occasionally been the means of working miracles. Several instances of bread exuding blood, under supernatural circ.u.mstances, are related by Rivola. Ehrenberg found this colour on some bread in the house of a patient who had died of cholera, and he ascertained the pigment to be due to the presence of the _Monas prodigiosa_, small round bodies which Professor Cohn cla.s.ses with the micrococci, a variety of the sphere-shaped bacterium.

The recent investigations of Koch were directed to the cause of splenic fever, and Cohn on examining his specimens found that they were examples of Bacteria of the species called _Bacillus anthracis_, which seems to present little or no difference to the _Bacillus subtilis_ of hay infusions. Koch found that _bacilli_ increase with enormous rapidity in the blood, and in the fluid of tissues of living animals, by developing in length and dividing transversely. The animals employed were chiefly mice, and a small incision being made at the root of the tail, as minute a drop as possible of the fluid containing the _bacilli_ was injected into the system. The spleen invariably became enormously swollen, and filled with a large number of crystalline-looking rods of varying size, never exhibiting movement or spore formation; they increased in numbers solely by division.

The number of _bacilli_ found in the blood varies in different animals; thus in the guinea-pig it was enormous, sometimes exceeding that of the blood-corpuscles; in the rabbit much smaller, so that sometimes several drops had to be examined before any were found, in the mouse often _nil_.

In the blood of dead animals or other suitable fluids the _bacilli_ grow to very long straight leptothorax-like filaments (within certain limits of temperature, and with the presence of air), while the formation of numerous spores goes on at the same time.

Kohl believes that it is to the presence of the spores that the occurrence of splenetic fever appears to be referable. When living, inoculation with them always produced the disease; but if killed, as by drying, or a high temperature, inoculation failed; it was necessary either that living spores should be present, or that the filaments should be capable of generating spores, in order that the disease should be propagated by inoculation.

Koch tried whether the poisonous bacilli spores could gain entrance through the digestive organs, but found that mice and rabbits could eat them with impunity. Koch draws attention to the similarity of splenic fever to typhus and cholera. He says it presents a.n.a.logies to typhus in its dependence on soil-water, its preference for low grounds, its sporadic occurrence throughout the year, and its development into an epidemic in the late summer and autumn. Like cholera, again, he says, it is connected with soil-water, and it also agrees with cholera in the point which has been so well made out by Pettenkofer, that on board s.h.i.+p an interval of three or four weeks is sufficient to prevent its further development.

Hence Koch is disposed to hope that the contagium of typhus and cholera may still be discovered in the form of some _Schizophyte_ or spheroidal bacterium, though practical observers have hitherto sought for them in vain.

Many pathologists, however, refuse to accept the accuracy of these deductions, and regard the presence of bacteria in the blood and tissues during disease as of no significance; whilst they deny that it is satisfactorily proved that they are the cause of disease.

Dr Lionel Beale says:--"Changes in the processes of digestion are soon followed by the multiplication of bacteria in every part of the alimentary ca.n.a.l, and within a few hours countless millions may be developed. They multiply in the secretions under certain circ.u.mstances, almost as soon as these are formed, and I have adduced evidence to show that bacteria germs exist even in healthy blood. In the very substance of some cells I have seen them, and in many cases in which little granules have been discerned in connection with bioplasts. There is reason to believe that some of them are really bacteria germs, pa.s.sive as long as the higher life is maintained in its integrity, but ready to grow and multiply the instant a change favorable to them, and adverse to us, shall occur."

And again he remarks:--"Bacteria prey upon morbid structure, and upon the substances resulting from the death of bioplasm (protoplasm). We ought not, therefore, to be surprised at their existence in disease. They are found in great numbers amongst pus-corpuscles which have ceased to live, and they grow and multiply with great rapidity in fluids which contain disease germs, as soon as these begin to lose their specific powers and to undergo decomposition." See GERMS.

=BAD"GER= (baj'-er). _Syn._ ME'LES, L.; BLAIREAU, Fr.; DACHS, Ger. The _ur'sus me'les_ (Linn.), one of the plantigrade carnivora, a burrowing nocturnal animal, common in Europe, Asia, and North America. Since the extirpation of the bear, the badger is the sole representative of the ursine family in our indigenous zoology. Its habits are "nocturnal, inoffensive, and slothful; its food consists of roots, earth-nuts, fruits, the eggs of birds, insects, reptiles, and the smaller quadrupeds; its noxious qualities are consequently few and of slight moment, and by no means justify the exterminating war unintermittently waged against it."

(Brande.) Its "muscular strength is great, its bite proverbially powerful; and a dog must be trained and encouraged to enter willingly into combat"

with it. (Id.)

_Uses, &c._ The flesh of the badger is prized as food; the skin used for pistol furniture; the hair made into brushes. The American badger is commonly called the GROUND-HOG. The Cape badger produces HYRACEUM (which _see_).

=BAD'IANE= (-e-ahn). [Fr.] _Syn._ BAD'IAN, B.-SEED. Star-anise seed.

=BADI"GEON= (ba-dizh'one; bad'-e-zhun, or ba-dij'un--Smart). Among operatives and artists, any cement used to fill up holes and to cover defects in their work. Among statuaries, a mixture of plaster and free-stone is commonly used for this purpose; among joiners and carpenters, a mixture of sawdust and glue, or of whiting and glue; and among coopers, one of tallow and chalk. The name is also given to a stone-coloured mixture used for the fronts of houses, and said to be composed of wood-dust and lime, slaked together, stone powder, and a little ochre, umber, or sienna; the whole being mixed up with weak alum water to the consistence of paint, and laid on in dry weather.

=BAEL.= [Nat.] _Syn._ INDIAN BAEL, BEL*; BAEL, B. IN'DICUS, BE'LA, B.

IN'DICA, L. The _g'le marmelos_ (Correa; _crataeva m._, Linn.) one of the Aurantiaceae (DC.). Dried half-ripe fruit imported from the E. Indies, under the name of INDIAN BAEL. Astringent and refrigerant; highly extolled in chronic dysentery, diarrha, English cholera, and relaxations generally. It is also used in bilious fevers, hypochondriasis, melancholia, &c. Root-bark, stem-bark, and expressed juice of the leaves, particularly the first, also used in the same cases in India. Ripe fruit fragrant and delicious; used, in the E. I., as a warm cathartic, and regarded as a certain cure for habitual costiveness. Mucus of the seeds used by painters as size; also as a cement. Unripe fruit used to dye yellow. It is generally administered under the form of DECOCTION or EXTRACT (which _see_).

=BAGa.s.sE'= (-gas'). [Fr.] The dry refuse stalks of the sugar cane as they leave the crus.h.i.+ng-mill.--Used as fuel in the colonial sugar-houses.

=BAGG'ING.= The cloth or materials of which bags or sacks are made. In _agriculture_, applied to a method of reaping corn by a chopping, instead of a drawing cut. See RATS, &c.

=BAHIA POWDER.= See ARAROBA.

=BAHR'S NON-POISONOUS MEDICAL SNUFF.= A snuff largely advertised in the Berlin journals, composed chiefly of powdered galls. (Hager.)

=BAIN-MARIE.= [Fr.] In _old chemistry_, a water bath; also, sometimes, a sand bath. In _cookery_, a shallow vessel containing heated water, in which saucepans, &c., are placed, when it is necessary either to make them hot, or to keep them so, without allowing them to boil. It is extremely useful in making sauces, warming soups and small dishes, and when dinners are delayed after they are ready to be served.

=BA"KING= (bake'-). _Syn._ ACTION DE CUIRE AU FOUR, Fr. The process of cooking, or of heating, drying, and hardening any substance in an oven or kiln, or by the rays of the sun; the art or trade of a baker; also technically, a batch or ovenful, or the quant.i.ty baked at once (= FOURNeE, Fr.).

In _cookery_, baking is, perhaps, of all others, the cheapest, most convenient, and best way of dressing dinners for small families, where a good domestic oven is at hand. Though the flavour of baked meat is generally considered barely equal to that of the same parts roasted, there are some joints and dishes to which it appears particularly suitable.

Among these may be mentioned legs and loins of pork, legs and shoulders of mutton, fillets of veal, &c. A baked pig, if it has been occasionally basted, and the heat has not been too great, eats equal to a roast one.

Geese and ducks treated in the same way are also excellent. A baked hare which has been basted with raw milk and b.u.t.ter also eats well; and so do various pieces of beef, especially the b.u.t.tock. Cooks tell us that this last should be sprinkled with a little salt for a day or two before dressing it, and after being washed is preferably baked, along with about a pint of water, in a glazed earthen pan tied over with writing paper, 'three or four times thick.' A baked ham is said to be preferable to a boiled one; to be tenderer, fuller of gravy, and finer flavoured. It should be soaked in water for about an hour, wiped dry, and covered with a coa.r.s.e thin paste or batter. Ordinary dishes require similar treatment in baking to that given them when roasted.

For domestic use, where the kitchen-range does not include a really good oven, the portable articles known as a 'DUTCH-OVEN,' and an 'American oven,' form an excellent subst.i.tute, admirably adapted for small joints, poultry, &c., all of which, when these utensils are skilfully employed, possess a delicacy and flavour fully equal to the same when roasted; whilst not more than one half the fire is required for the purpose.

According to Miss Acton they also "answer excellently for delicate sweet puddings, and for cakes." See BREAD, CAKES, ROASTING, &c.

=Baking Pow'der.= See POWDERS.

=Baking Powder, American.= For making light pastry. Tartaric acid and chalk. (Reichardt.)

=Baking Powder, Borwick's German=, is an artificial fermentation powder, compounded with coa.r.s.e maize-flour. (Gadike.)

=Baking Powder, Goodall's=, is a compound of 2 parts of rice flour with 1 part of a mixture of tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda. (K. Boschan.)

=Baking Powder or Yeast Powder, Professor Horsford's= (Cambridge, U.S.).

This is a powder supplied in two packets. The one contains an acid phosphate of lime and magnesia made up with a certain quant.i.ty of flour, and the other is bicarbonate of soda, with a little chloride of pota.s.sium.

=BAL'ANCE.= As in the process of what is termed gravimetric a.n.a.lysis the chemist has to determine the weights of the different substances employed as well as found, it will be self-evident that for his results to be trustworthy the balance he employs must be perfectly accurate and reliable.

The accompanying drawing, from Roscoe, represents a common form of chemical balance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The apparatus consists of a perforated bra.s.s beam (AA), vibrating about its centre, at which is fixed a triangular knife-edge of agate (C); this rests upon a horizontal agate plane attached to the upright bra.s.s pillar.

To each end of the beam light bra.s.s pans (BB) are hung, each pan being suspended by an agate plane, upon an agate knife-edge fixed on the end of the beam at DD. This arrangement is rendered necessary in order to reduce as much as possible the friction of the edges on their supports, which friction, if unchecked, would seriously impair the sensibility of the balance.