MORPHOLOGIC VARIATION OF BACTERIA 13 



assumed by volutin in old cultures of diphtheroid bacilli (personal 

 observation). Lohnis accepts the older uncritical works on the cy- 

 tology of bacteria, and almost any internal structure may be a nu- 

 cleus. Enderlein claims to have differentiated his "mych" from re- 

 serve foodstuffs, but I doubt that his observations can be substan- 

 tiated. Almquist's recognition of haploid and diploid phases on size 

 alone hardly deserves serious consideration. In this connection it 

 should also be noted that Lohnis has apparently made no attempt by 

 micro-chemical methods to determine the nature of his regenerative 

 granules, i.e., whether or not they might be volutin, and Hort has 

 similarly overlooked this possibility with regard to the so-called 

 ascospores of the meningococci. In short such differential staining 

 processes as are at our disposal for identifying intracellular ergastic 

 substances have not been used on the various structures interpreted 

 as nuclei, gonidia, regenerative bodies, etc., and until they have been 

 used we are justified in suspecting that these structures may be fat 

 or volutin or other material. 



The most serious criticism of this new pleomorphism, however, 

 has to do not so much with the data or the technique, as with the 

 line of reasoning which has led to the development of the theories of 

 life cycles. Nowhere does one find a clear argument starting from 

 proved facts, but only either vague analogies or conclusions drawn 

 from unwarranted assumptions. An example from Almquist will 

 serve to illustrate the most important fallacy. He says: 



Die mannlichen Antheridien habe ich zweifelsohne oft in meinen Prapara- 

 ten gesehen, obgleich ich die Kopulation nie sicher beobachten konnte. Wohl 

 sah ich manchmal geschwollene Formen mil feinsten, an der Seite festsitzenden 

 Komchen oder Nadelchen. Dem naheren verlauf ich konnte aber nicht folgen. 

 Ich nehme doch an, dass die zahlreichen, 0.5m. oder darunter messenden Mikro- 

 konidien und auch andere feine Kornchen zu den Antheridien gehoren. 



Henceforth these structures are referred to as antheridia, though 

 their identity as such is only an assumption on the part of the author. 

 The same thing has been done repeatedly by Mellon, Lohnis, 

 Hort, and Enderlein, though never so frankly admitted. Structures 

 look like conidia or ascospores or zygospores or what not; therefore 

 they are named such and in further reasoning are considered as such, 



