While in the evolution of knowledge the progress of bacteriology has been most associated with that of medicine and surgery, the science has fundamental relations with many other human interests, and the same methods are used in investigating such relationships. The adaptation of these methods on a commercial scale underlies all industrial processes concerned in the preserving of milk and in the canning and bottling of meat and fruit (apart from the addition of chemical preservatives). Since bacteriology came into existence, many of the most primitive domestic procedures have been improved and placed on a scientific basis. Thus, butter-making involves a previous souring of the milk; this is due to bacterial action, and standard mixtures of milk-souring bacteria are now regularly supplied by the laboratory as 'starters' of the process. It is recognized that the disorders of milk, e.g. 'ropiness', 'blue milk', &c., are due to certain 'wild' bacteria gaining access to the dairy. The ripening of such cheeses as Gorgonzola and Stilton is due to bacteria and allied organisms, and here again light has been shed on the 'diseases' of cheese by bacteriological investigation. The pickling of foods by salt, or vinegar, or nitre, is due to the action of these substances as antiseptics, and a similar principle, aided by boiling, underlies the making of jams. Again, certain kinds of bacteria which only flourish at high temperatures are responsible for the heating of hay and corn stacks, and for the production of ensilage. Bacteriology is also throwing important light on factors concerned in the fertility of soils. For example, it has been shown that the little nodules on the roots of plants of the pea tribe are caused by bacteria; these, in growing, take up nitrogen from the air, and form compounds which promote the growth of the plant on which they are parasites and remain to enrich the soil when the plant dies. In short, there is no industry, which depends on natural putrefaction being prevented or modified so as to stop at a particular stage, which bacteriology cannot guide towards securing the most perfect results.—Bibliography: Fischer, The Structure and Functions of Bacteria; Abbot, Principles of Bacteriology; Muir and Ritchie, Manual of Bacteriology; E. R. Stitt, Practical Bacteriology; P. H. Hiss and H. Zinsser, A Textbook of Bacteriology.
Bactria´na, or Bactria, a country of ancient Asia, south of the Oxus and reaching to the west of the Hindu Kush. It is often regarded as the original home of the Indo-European races. A Græco-Bactrian kingdom flourished about the third century B.C., but its history is obscure.
Baculi´tes, a fossil genus allied to the ammonites, characteristic of cretaceous strata, having a straight tapering shell. See Cephalopoda.
Ba´cup, a municipal borough of England, in Lancashire, 18 miles N. of Manchester. The chief manufacturing establishments are connected with cotton-spinning and power-loom weaving; there are also ironworks, Turkey-red dyeing-works, and in the neighbourhood numerous coal-pits and immense stone-quarries. Pop. (1921), 21,256.
Badagry, seaport in the British province of Southern Nigeria, West Africa, 50 miles E.N.E. of Whydah. Pop. about 10,000.
Badajoz (ba˙-da˙-hōth´; ancient, Pax Augusta), the fortified capital of the Spanish province of Badajoz, on the left bank of the Guadiana, which is crossed by a stone bridge of twenty-eight arches. It is a bishop's see, and has an interesting cathedral. During the Peninsular War
Badajoz was besieged by Marshal Soult, and taken in March, 1811. It was twice attacked by the English, on 5th and 29th May, 1811, and was besieged by Wellington on 16th March, and taken 6th April, 1812. Pop. 37,600.—The province of Badajoz has an area of 8451 sq. miles. Pop. 644,220.
Badakshan´, a territory of Central Asia, tributary to the Ameer of Afghanistan. It has the Oxus on the north, and the Hindu Kush on the south, and has lofty mountains and fertile valleys; the chief town is Faizabad. The inhabitants profess Mahommedanism. Pop. 20,957.
Badalona (bä-da˙-lō´na), a Mediterranean seaport of Spain, 5 miles from Barcelona. Pop. 19,240.
Baden (bä´dėn), formerly a Grand-Duchy and one of the more important States of the German Empire, situated in the S.W. of Germany, to the west of Württemberg. It is divided into four districts, Constance, Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Mannheim. It has an area of 5819 sq. miles, and a pop. of 2,142,833. It is mountainous, being traversed to a considerable extent by the lofty plateau of the Schwarzwald or Black Forest, which attains its highest point in the Feldberg (4904 feet). The nucleus of this plateau consists of gneiss and granite. In the north it sinks down towards the Odenwald, which is, however, of different geological structure, being composed for the most part of red sandstone. The whole of Baden, except a small portion in the S.E., in which the Danube takes its rise, belongs to the basin of the Rhine, which bounds it on the south and west. Numerous tributaries of the Rhine intersect it, the chief being the Neckar. Lakes are numerous, and include a considerable part of the Lake of Constance. The climate varies much. The hilly parts, especially in the east, are cold and have a long winter, while the valley of the Rhine enjoys the finest climate of Germany. The principal minerals worked are coal, salt, iron, zinc, and nickel. The number of mineral springs is remarkably great, and of these not a few are of great celebrity. The vegetation is peculiarly rich, and there are magnificent forests. The cereals comprise wheat, oats, barley, and rye. Potatoes, hemp, tobacco, wine, and sugar-beet are largely produced. Several of the wines, both white and red, rank in the first class. Baden has long been famous for its fruits also. Of the total area 55.4 per cent is under cultivation, 39.4 per cent under forest, and 5.2 per cent uncultivated (houses, roads, water, &c.). The farms are mostly quite small. The manufactures are important. Among them are textiles, tobacco and cigars, chemicals, machinery, pottery ware, jewellery (especially at Pforzheim), wooden clocks, confined chiefly to the districts of the Black Forest, musical boxes and other musical toys. The capital is Karlsruhe, about 5 miles from the Rhine; the other chief towns are Mannheim, Freiburg-im-Breisgau (with a Roman Catholic university), Baden, and Heidelberg. Baden has warm mineral springs, which were known and used in the time of the Romans. Heidelberg has a university (Protestant), founded in 1386, the oldest in Germany. The railways have a length of 1200 miles, and are all State property. In the time of the Roman Empire southern Baden belonged to the Roman province of Rhætia. Under the old German Empire it was a margraviate, which in 1533 was divided into Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach, but reunited in 1771. The title of grand-duke was conferred by Napoleon in 1806, and in the same year Baden was extended to its present limits. Until 1918 the executive power was vested in the grand-duke, the legislative in a house of legislature, consisting of an upper and a lower chamber. The former consisted partly of hereditary members; the latter of elected representatives of the people. In the break-up of the German Empire in Nov., 1918, Baden was among the first States to feel the shock of revolution. The Grand-Duke Frederick I abdicated, and the Provisional Government, under the Socialist Herr Jeiss, proclaimed Baden a Republic. Two-thirds of the population are Roman Catholics, the rest Protestants.