402 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



self-division, cacli half possessing its genital-like mesoblast. In all their 

 various shapes and actions, and in the mode of self-division, there is a re- 

 markable and undistinguishable resemblance to numerous moving bodies 

 which go under the name of Infusoria, and which may be found, uncon- 

 nected with any living organism, in various kinds of infusions. 



ON THE ORIGIN OF THE YIBRIO. 





 The following paper has been communicated to the American Academy 



by II. J. Clark, of Cambridge : 



In connection with Pouchet's revival of the doctrine of equivocal or spon- 

 taneous generation, a discovery made by me may not be uninteresting, as it 

 has more or less relations in its nature to his theory. There are certain 

 well-known bodies, described as animals by Ehrenberg, under the name of 

 vibrio; their peculiarity consists in that they are composed of a single row of 

 globular bodies, resembling a string of beads, more or less curved, and move 

 in a spiral path with great velocity, even faster than the eye can follow in 

 many cases. They exhibit, by their activity, more plausible signs of ani- 

 mal ity than any of the Dcsmidcre or Diatomacese, and fully as convincing 

 indications of life as the spores of Algoe, to which they were first referred 

 by the late Dr. W. I. Burnet, and after him by Rudolph "\Vagncr and Leuck- 

 art. They have always been spoken of as developing around decaying animal 

 and vegetable matter. I was very much surprised to discover the manner 

 in which they originate from such substances. I was studying the decom- 

 posing muscle of a Sagitta, a little crustacean, as I consider it, when I 

 noticed large numbers of Vibrio, darting hither and thither, but most fre- 

 quently swarming about the muscular fibres. I was struck with the similar- 

 ity of these bead-like strings to the fibril! of the muscle; and, upon close 

 comparison, I found that the former were exactly of the same size, and had 

 the same optical properties as the latter. Some of these appeared to be at- 

 tached to the ends of the flat, ribbon-like fibres, and others at times loosened 

 themselves and swam away. I was immediately impressed with the daring 

 thought, that these vibrios were the fibrillre set loose from the fibres; but as 

 this was a thing unheard of, and so startling, I for the time persuaded my- 

 self that they must have been accidentally attached and subsequently loos- 

 ened. However, I continued my observation until I found some fibres in 

 which the fibrillse were in all stages of decomposition. At one end of the 

 fibre the ultimate cellules of the fibrilla? were so closely united, that only 

 the longitudinal and transverse stria} were visible; further alonir, the cellules 

 were singly visible; and still further, they had assumed a globular shape; 

 next, the transverse rows were loosened from each other excepting at one 

 end; and finally, those at the extreme end of the fibre were agitated, and 

 waved to and fro, as if to get loose, which they did from time to time, and, 

 assuming a curved form, revolved each upon its axis, and swam away with 

 amazing velocity. There was no doubting, after this, the identity of the 

 vibrios and the muscular fibrilla 1 ; but I thought such a strange phenome- 

 non ought to have a second witness to vouch for it, and therefore went for 

 the best that could be wished for, Prof. Agassiz. I simply placed the pre- 

 parations before him, and, without giving him the least hint of the origin of 

 the muscle, I was pleased to have him rediscover what I had seen but fifteen 

 minutes before. 



The number of ultimate cellules in a moving string varied from two to 



