70 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



former as standing in the same relation to the latter as the so-called 

 saprophytes (e. g. Neottia) do to ordinary green flowering plants. 



This view has especial interest with regard to the minute 

 organisms known as Bacteria, a knowledge of the life-history of 

 which is of the greatest importance, having regard to the changes 

 which they effect in all lifeless and, probably, in all living matter 

 prone to decomposition. This affords a morphological argument (as 

 far as it goes) against the doctrine of spontaneous generation, since it 

 seems extremely probable that just as yeast may be a degraded form 

 of some higher fungus, Bacteria may be degraded allies of the 

 Oscillatorice, which have adopted a purely saprophytal mode of 

 existence. 



Your ' Proceedings ' for the present year contain several important 

 contributions to our knowledge of the lowest forms of life. The 

 Rev. W. H. Dallinger, continuing those researches which his skill in 

 using the highest microscopic powers and his ingenuity in devising 

 experimental methods have rendered so fruitful, has adduced evidence 

 which seems to leave no doubt that the spores or germs of the monad 

 which he has described differ in a remarkable manner from the young 

 or adult monads in their power of resisting heated fluids. The young 

 and adult monads, in fact, were always killed by five minutes' 

 exposure to a temperature of 142° F. (61° C), while the spores 

 germinated after being subjected to a temperature of 10° above the 

 boiling-point of water (222° F.). 



Two years ago, Cohn and Koch observed the development of 

 spores within the rods of Bacillus siibtilis and B. anthracis. These 

 observations have been confirmed, with imj)ortaut additions, in these 

 two species by Mr. Ewart, and have been extended to the Bacillus of 

 the infectious pneumo-enteritis of the pig, by Dr. Klein ; and to 

 S'[)irillu7n by Messrs. Geddes and Ewart ; and thus a very important 

 step has been made towards the completion of our knowledge of the 

 life-history of the minute but important organisms. Dr. Klein has 

 shown that the infectious pneumo-enteritis, or typhoid fever of the 

 pig, is, like splenic fever, due to a Bacillus. Having succeeded in 

 cultivating this Bacillus in such a manner as to raise crops free from 

 all other organisms. Dr. Klein inoculated healthy pigs with the fluid 

 containing the Bacilli, and found that the disease in due time arose 

 and followed its ordinary course. It is now, therefore, distinctly 

 proved that two diseases of the higher animals, namely, ' splenic 

 fever ' and ' infectious pneumo-enteritis,' are generated by a contagium 

 vivum. 



Finally, Messrs. Downes and Blunt have commenced an inquiry 

 into the influence of light ujjon Bacteria and other fungi, which 

 promises to yield resiilts of great interest, the general tendency of 

 these investigations leaning towards the conclusion that exposure to 

 strong solar light checks and even arrests the development of such 

 organisms. 



The practical utility of investigations relating to Bacillus 

 organisms as aflbrding to the pathologist a valuable means of asso- 

 ciating by community of origin various diseases of apparently different 



