316 BACTERIA IN THE SPUTA 



without which it would be difficult to verify the facts, even for the 

 most experienced investigators. The productions by points are 

 fairly well detected, even with the ordinary objectives ; but special 

 care must be taken in collecting and preparing the patina dentaria. 



We do not know whether the specific oneness of the above 

 forms (by ears and by points) will be well received by competent 

 observers, as well as all the buccal microbes reunited in a single 

 plant. But, were even two or more of the vegetable species in 

 question, the successive dissemination of their germs and elements 

 in the air-passages would not at all be invalidated. 



IX. — The most minute form of cocci, scattered or in a line, 

 found in the contents of the mouth, in the omonimous epithelia, or 

 in the sputa, are, in our opinion, nothing but sporules dropped from 

 the fructifications by ears^ being first disseminated in the mouth and 

 then thrown into the respiratory passages. The bacilli of Koch (we 

 are speaking of bead-like bacilH) might be only these same sporules 

 disposed in series, and thus germinating in the tubercular products 

 and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, the sporules, still attached to the 

 fructifications, or fallen near them, fix strongly the aniline colours ; 

 but it remains to be seen whether, in the sputa of consumptives, 

 their resistance to decolourising means is original or simply 

 acquired in the fresh nutrient substratum received from the tuber- 

 cular lesions. At any rate, that resistance is always relative, and is 

 of doubtful value in the diagnosis, and is sometimes inferior to 

 that of other bacteria^ as we have demonstrated before. 



The forms of the bacilli of Koch being, on the contrary, in 

 small rods containing granules or vacuoles, with double staining 

 (gentian violet and solution of iodine) behave like the analogous 

 articulations of Leptothrix. But upon these and other not less 

 important points, about the clinical study of the tubercular sputa, 

 we shall have to deal on another occasion. 



X. — However, if our observations on the morphology and 

 biology of Leptothrix are correct ; if all, or nearly all, forms of 

 bacteria and bacilli to be found in the sputa, are nothing but par. 

 tides or various organs of a single plant, everyone can see the 

 extent of the actual methods of culture (at least of the bacteria of 

 the air-passages). 



And, to be sure, one person may identify or qualify a fungus 



