168 BACTERIA IN THE SPUTA 



Jodococcus vaginatus (Fig. 15 of Miller, reproduced in our 

 Fig. 7) is found rather plentifully in uncleaned mouths. Miller 

 found it only in two children. It is formed of from four to ten 

 cellules or nuclei, seldom more, placed obliquely in chain, and 

 having the shape of little flat or round shields, or tetrahedrons. 

 The chain is either bare, as in /, /, of Fig. 2, or sheathed. The 

 sheath, large, 075 mm. (I have found some even larger) is colour- 

 less or takes a yellowish colour, with a long iodine saturation. The 

 nuclei are tinged with dark violet. At times the sheath is broken, 

 the place of the nucleus is empty, or it has dropped off. 



I shall not repeat what 1 demonstrated in Section I. with 

 regard to these chains — of their envelope tardily discovered, of 

 the presence on the same of curved diplococci, morphologically 

 identical with the gonococcus of Neisser. I shall only state that, 

 as such forms are found, even of greater dimensions, in urine, and 

 being intermixed with filaments and other forms of Leptothrix, 

 their relation with this parasite, which is most widely spread, 

 becomes still more probable. It is, perhaps, the only one which 

 lodges simultaneously in the mouth and in the external genito- 

 urinary mucous membrane. 



But, even admitting the Jodococcus vaginatus of Miller to be 

 entirely different from the small sheathed chains described by us 

 in Fig. 4, their entity as a distinct species still remains doubtful. 

 The same author, in the quoted work of 1883, described and drew 

 (annexed plate. Fig. 8) some articulations divided in two and in 

 four small cocci, arranged, as in the Jodococcus vagi?iatus, by 

 couples or tetrahedrons. He even found in the pig whole filaments 

 of Leptothrix^ made up with a series of those cocci, as we shall 

 see later. 



Spirillum sputigenum (Figs. 16 and 17 of Miller and our Fig, 

 5, h). — It is found in every mouth, and mostly upon unclean 

 teeth. We should note this circumstance, as it corroborates our 

 views. Cleaning the teeth destroys, every time, the pseudo-inflo- 

 rescences or productions by points, from which would rise those 

 Comma bacilli, together with the spindle-like and snake-like bacilli. 

 We shall see, in fact, that the simple act of mastication is apt to 

 destroy those pseudo-inflorescences, so that we must look for them 



