162 BACTERIA IN THE SPUTA 



contrary, his views were, in a sense, diametrically opposed to 

 my own. 



Of the specimen found in the pulmonitic sputum I shall 

 speak in Section 4. According to Miller, the opinions hitherto 

 acquired on the microbes of the mouth would be as follows : — 



In the 3rd chapter of his volume, " The Micro-Organisms of 

 the Buccal Cavity : Local and General Complaints produced by 

 them " (the most complete and most recent work on the subject), 

 the illustrious Berlin Professor goes on to relate the ancient and 

 recent scientific opinions on the microbes of the mouth, beginning 

 with their discoverer, Leeuwenhoek, who, in 1683, discovered 

 first on his own teeth, always kept clean, and afterwards on those 

 of an old man, '■''magna cum admiratio7ie^^ animalcules, drawn by 

 him (Fig. 10 of Miller), some of which resemble the Comma 

 bacilli -.—^^Multa exigua admodimi animalcida jiicundissimo modo se 

 move?iHa." 



Lebeaume compared the tartar on the teeth to coral formations. 

 Mandl held that the tartar proceeded from the chalky remains of 

 the vibriones described by him, which he thought would be killed 

 by heat, by hydrochloric acid, and alcohol. Biihlmann was the first 

 to observe and describe the fi.laments of Leptothrix, without, 

 however, giving any opinion as regards their vegetable or animal 

 nature. 



Henle was the first to declare that these microbes were of a 

 vegetable nature. 



Erdl treated the decayed teeth with hydrochloric acid, and from 

 the crown he obtained a kind of delicate, enveloping membrane, 

 composed of parasites. 



Ficinus dealt diffusely with microbes of the buccal cavity, 

 which he held to be of an animal nature, and gave them the 

 generic name of dental animalcules. He described the filaments 

 of Leeuwenhoek and of Biihlmann, the granules, the epithelia, the 

 corpuscles of mucus, forming the patina dentaria, as well as 

 certain infusoria that accidentally dwelt there. He not only held 

 the bacteria and bacilli to be real animalcules in brisk motion, but 

 he imagined also that they possessed a mouth. He grouped them 

 with infusoria without cilia, probably shelled, after the types of the 

 genera Paramceciimi and Colpoda. 



