840 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



stocking in a test-glass, charged with pure vitreous humour. This 

 and succeeding generations were cultivated at a temperature which 

 varied between 94° and 98° Fahr. The successive generations were 

 obtained by inoculating pure vitreous humour, with requisite precau- 

 tions. In twenty-four hour? the surface of the vitreous humour was 

 always found covered with a delicate scum, which in forty-eight hours 

 was compact and tolerably resistant. 



In the scum of one day's growth and in the fluid belo.v it 

 organisms were found as cocci, single and in pairs, in transition 

 stages towards rod formation, as single and jointed rods, and as 

 elongated single rods. Many of the rods were actively motile. The 

 compact scum of two days' growth was sufficiently resistant to be 

 removed in an unbroken sheet. "When disturbed by the needle it fell 

 to the bottom of the glass. It was found to contain all the forms 

 found in the twenty-four hours' growth, and in addition long unbroken 

 rods in transition stages towards the formation of chains of spores. 

 Spores were also found lying beside tlie empty and partially empty 

 sheaths from which they had been discharged. Groups of single 

 spores and pairs, identical in size and ajipearance with those which 

 had come to maturity in the sheaths, were found mixed up with rods 

 in all phases of development. 



The first stage in the development of the organism is the formation 

 of a pair from one coccus. 



The next stage is that in which the whole body is wedge-shaped, 

 the round brightly-refractive coccus being found in the thick end of 

 the wedge. Another phase, which is probably the successor of the 

 preceding one, is the appearance of a canoe-shaped figure with the 

 bright coccus in the centre. 



Other appearances connected with the early stage of development, 

 and probably following the wedge- and canoe-shaped figures, show 

 the organism developed into a staflf-shaped body, containing two 

 elements of very different refractive power. The coccus element is 

 still distinct and is brightly refractive, the other element is very 

 slightly refractive and is seen as a dull shade, with however perfectly 

 distinct outlines. The coccus may be at one end of the rod, two 

 cocci may be in the centre close together with a prolongation of 

 protoplasm on either side, or a central rod of protoplasm may have a 

 coccus at either end. 



In the next stage we have the formation of the rods characteristic 

 of Bacteria. The distinction between the coccus and the protoplasm 

 becomes lost, although transitions are found in which faint differences 

 of refraction still betray the two elements. The formation of rods 

 of ordinary size, of long rods with unbroken protoplasm, of rods 

 with segmented protoplasm, and of rods filled with spores or cocci, 

 progresses identically with the similar formation in Bacillus anthracis. 



The Bacterium grows in turnip infusion less actively than in 

 vitreous humour. 



Dr. Thin states that an antiseptic treatment by which the bacteria 

 were killed in the stockings and inner surface of the soles of the boots 

 completely destroyed the foetor. 



