The Character of the Flagella 351 



Cultures used : In this work, agar cultures have been em- 

 ployed. Unfortunately the staining method is not so appli- 

 cable to preparations of bacteria from bouillon cultures on 

 account of the presence of organic substances in the bouillon, 

 which form a deeply stained back ground. I have, however, 

 succeeded in making a few quite satisfactory preparations from 

 these cultures. Gelatin and potato can be used, but with our 

 present methods the surface of inclined agar appears to be the 

 most satisfactory sub-stratum upon which to grow the bacteria 

 for this purpose. 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE COMMON AND MORE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS OF 

 THE FIvAGELI^A ON THE BACILLUS CHOLERA SUIS, B. COU COMMUNIS, 

 AND B. TYPHI ABDOMINALIS. 



In stained preparations for the exhibition of the flagella on 

 these bacteria, there are so many variations and exceptions to 

 what might be termed a typical presentation of the body of 

 the germ and its motile appendages, that at present, a formula 

 for their description can not well be written. In order to 

 avoid repetition I shall first describe in a general way, such 

 characters of the flagella as are common to the three species.* 



The staining process necessary to bring out the flagella 

 increases to a slight extent the size of the body of the germs. 

 This is probably due either to the staining of a " capsular " 

 substance which may surround the bacteria, and which is not 

 brought out by the ordinary staining methods, or to the swell- 

 ing of the cellular substance on account of the action of the 

 mordant. t 



* In this discussion the well-known morphological characters (size 

 and form) of these bacteria are omitted. The rod-shaped forms will be 

 spoken of as the body of the germ wherever it is necessary to distin- 

 guish between it and the flagella. The terms motile appendages, and 

 filaments are used synonymously with flagella. 



fZettnow'^ holds with Klebs and Biitsclili, that the part of the germ 

 which is easily brought out by the ordinary staining methods is the 

 nucleus only, and that the additional part which is demonstrated by the 

 use of Ivoeffler's method is a plasma which surrounds the nucleus. 

 Wahrlich (Article reviewed in Centralblatt f. Bafiteriologie u. Par- 

 asit'etttcunde XI, (1892) p. 49) found two substances in bacteria cells, (i) 

 the basis, a substance which gave the micro-chemical reaction of linen, 

 and (2) a chromatine substance or nucleus which is contained within 

 the meshes of the basis. 



