170 BACTERIA IN THE SPUTA 



chain of cocci. The author has not detected any spores. Although 

 this microbe grows in the gelatine, it does so in a different manner 

 from the cholera bacillus. 



Spirochsete dentium (Fig. 20 of Miller and our Fig. 6, c) is not 

 found in the decayed teeth, but on the edge of the gums, together 

 with the Spirillum sputigeniwi (affection of the gums). It exhibits 

 spires 8-25 mm. long, of various thicknesses. The more slender 

 ones hardly become coloured. The author himself doubts whether 

 the slender spires constitute a separate species, because he con- 

 siders the largest amongst them to be akin to the Spirillutn sputi- 

 genum. Their development is probably unknown. '^ We know 

 little or nothing (he says) about the vital conditions and their 

 manifestations, such as fermentation, pathogenic action, etc." 



I shall observe that, amongst the materials which came under 

 my examination, 1 have constantly found these spirilla or spiro- 

 chcBta with the Leptothrix. In the former Memoir on relapsing 

 fever, I spoke of Spirilla and Spirochaeta, which, together with 

 filaments, small rods, and other portions of Leptothrix^ are pro- 

 duced in infusions of potatoes. In a later paper upon a Dip- 

 lococcus identical with the Gonococcus of Neisser, in a case of 

 Carcinoma of the bladder, I mentioned the striking Spirochceta 

 that are found in the sediment of bottles filled with the stale water. 

 Together with Zopf, I have retained the name Spirochceta for 

 those spirilla which bend in the middle, and thus mark a 

 sort of transition between the so-called Spirillum and the 

 Spirulina. I may add that, in the sediment of the bottles, 

 the Spirochceta surround the tiny islands or lumps of a stringy 

 microphite, which, in its natural state, resembles the filaments of 

 the Leptothrix giga?ttea from the dog, especially the more slender 

 ones, drawn in Figures 2, 3, 4 in the already mentioned article of 

 Miller. On the other hand, the intertwined filaments of that sedi- 

 ment, being coloured with aniline, resemble entirely the lumps of 

 the Bacillus buccalis ??iaximus of Miller, after Fig. 13 in the last 

 work of this author. According to Zopf, Leptothrix is a micro- 

 phite that lives in the water.* 



* Zopf, Die SpaUpihe^ Breslau, 1883, page 80. Vicentini, On a diplo- 

 coccus analogous to the gonococcus of Neisser, found in urine, in a case 

 of Carcinoma of the" bladder — Vol. XLiii., Degli Atti Delia R. Accade?nia 

 di Napoli, 1889. 



