MONEY PARASITES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1209, 26 July 1884, Page 1

MONE Y PARASITES.

It is reported that Dr lieinsch Las found, as the result of a long series of minute investigations, that the surfaces of 50-pfnnig pieces (sixpences) which have been long in circulation, are the home and feeding-ground of a minute kind of bacteria and vegetable fungus. The Frankfurter Zeitung states that an extended series of observations-.- showed that this is the case with the, small coins of ad nations, the thin incrustation of organic matter depositedupon their surfaces in the course of long circulation rendering them very suitable for this parasitical settlement. Dr Keinsch scraped off some of these incrustations, and aith a small scalpel divided them into fragments which were subsequently dissolved in distilled water. The e.mplpyment of lenses of veiy- high power snowed the bacteiia and fungi distinctly. ,s, ; This is a matter of no little impoitaucepfrom a hygienic point of view. It has.now been conclusively established, that, form thtf'cliief agency in the propagation of epidemic disease. The reyfclation that they have a chosen domicile in the most widely circulating medium which probably exists m tho world presents us with a now fiidtor iu the .'spread of infectious disease. There is, however a remedy. Where coins have been in circulation for a number of years, if they are washed, in a boiling weak solution of caustic potash they wid be cleansed from their otganic inciugration, ;and so. freed from the unwelcome guests which .they harboured.