AND CONTENTS OF THE MOUTH. 317 



on the ground of its fructification ; another, on the ground of the 

 form of cultures, immersed or creeping, of its single particles, or 

 the modifications brought about by these in the various nutrient 

 substrata. One bacterium or bacillus will fluidify gelatine or 

 elaborate certain principles (even poisons) in a manner totally 

 different from' another bacterium or bacillus, without, however, 

 considering the two forms as two organisms or different species, 

 when such forms are for us simply the result of organs or particles 

 of the same plant, destined to attain dissimilar aims, and which 

 may possess the most different qualities. 



XI. — Under such conditions, the name of bacterium or bacil- 

 lus^can noj^longer be considered as synonymous of micro-organism. 

 We may speak of bacteria and bacilli, if by those names we mean 

 particles or^articulations detached from the mother plant ; and in 

 such "a case the generic noun of microbes may be even applied. 

 But^the word micro-organism applies to the whole microphyte of 

 which bacteria and bacilli are only single scattered particles, and 

 which do not constitute by themselves complete organisms, although 

 they'mostly possess the faculty of multiplying on their own account. 

 Such name does not suit at all the single particles, nor, of course, 

 the single^bacteria or bacilli.* 



I cannot conclude this paper without a short statement. 



Perhaps some of my views will appear too bold, but my only 

 intention was to submit them to the judgment of scientific observ- 



* In ^"confirmation of our views, we shall quote the opinion of Klein, who 

 lately presented to the Royal Society of London the photographs of a culture of 

 the tubercular bacillus, which appeared with distinct branches Hke a mycelium 

 fungus. He inferred that at least a fezu schizophytes are really only forms of 

 development or transitory phases of superior organisms. The opinion of Dowdes- 

 well is even more expHcit. "It is clear " (writes the latter, on the subject of 

 comma bacilli) "that either these microbes are not normal schizophytes, or if so 

 they do not represent an independent group (as it has been observed by the last 

 writers on Bacteriology), but are sij?iple phases of evolution of some superior 

 organisms, or perhaps they are only simple organs of other organisms 

 {Lancet, 1890, Vol. I., loc. cit.,-^. 1422). Lately, Sheridan Delepine, studying 

 the development of bacteria in its culttires in interla^nellar films (between 

 the cover-glass and the slide) has come to that conclusion— viz. , of the branch- 

 ing off in many bacilli, by means of defined filaments (A New Method, Inter- 

 lamellar Films, of studying the development of Micro-Organisms, etc., in the 

 International Jotirnal of Microscopy y Nov., 1891, p. 343)* 



