318 BACTERIA IN THE SPUTA 



ers. I shall only notice that my opposition to certain points of the 

 present Bacteriological doctrines is more apparent than real. I am 

 of opinion that, by pursuing the present method of specifying, in 

 the classification of bacteria, we must more and more multiply their 

 species to such an extent as to hinder the further progress of these 

 studies. On the other hand, should my observations be correct, 

 if the forms of bacteria of the air and genito-urinary passages are 

 reduced to a single species, or if, consequently, even the other very 

 varied types of bacteria (either not at all pathogenic or pathogenic 

 of other parts) might be gradually reduced to defined species of 

 micro-organisms, according to the natural phases of their full devel- 

 opment ; this work upon their arrangement and simplification may 

 aid in the researches of experimental pathology. In other words, 

 we shall be able to recognise the difference between the botanical 

 and the pathogenic entity of bacteria ; that two or more bacteria, 

 totally different in their own pathogenic action, may proceed from 

 a single micro-organism, and that a bacterium, not pathogenic, 

 may belong, in its turn^ to the same micro-organism from which a 

 pathogenic bacterium proceeds. 



F. ViCENTINI, 



Chieti,/une, i8go. Corresponding Member. 



Bibliography. 



I. — Arndt, Beobactungen an Spirochaete denticola (Arch, fiir 



path. Anat. und Phys. und d. klinische Med. t. lxxiv. 1 880). 

 2. — Baume, Odontologische Forschungen, II. of the same, see 



also the " Elements of Dentistry " (Lehrbuch der Zahn- 



heilkunde, 3. Auflage, Leipzig, 1890). 

 3. — Beale, The Microscope in Medicine, London, 1878, p. 490. 

 4. — Bechamp. La salive la sialozymase et les organismes buccaux 



chez I'homme (Archives de physiologic, 3 serie, I., 1883, 



P- 47)- 

 2^ — Bizzozero, Manuale di Microscopia Clinica, Milan, 1882, 



pp. 103—104 and p. 153. 

 6._Chevalier. L'etudiant micrographe, Traite theorique et 



pratique du microscope, etc. Paris, 1882, pp. 393 — 94- 



