TRANSACTIONS 



OF 



THE CEOYDON MICROSCOPICAL AND 

 NATURAL HISTORY CLUB. 



1894-95. 



IIG. — Some Points in the Life-histoey of Bacteria. 



By J. M. HoBsoN, M.D., B. Sc. 



Bead March 20th, 1894. 



I DO not intend in this paper to give undue prominence to the 

 medical aspects of Bacteriology, remembering that this is neither 

 a medical nor a popular audience, but a philosophical society ; 

 nor, as the title indicates, do I propose to give a complete 

 remme of the known facts in what has grown to be a science in 

 itself. I have simply selected such of the salient points in the 

 life-history of Bacteria as I think will be interesting to the 

 members of this Club. On some of these points I shall dwell 

 very lightly, of others I shall treat more fully. 



Name.— BaxTiJpoi. is the Greek for a staff or baton, and as the 

 forms most readily observed are rod-shaped, the term has been 

 retained as a convenient one for the entire group of organisms, 

 although some are spiral, some cylindrical, and many are spherical. 



Botanical Position.— The Bacteria are all included in the group 

 or family of Schizomycetes (from ax^^i^, I cut, and jxiKn^, a fumjus), 

 or fission fungi, from their characteristic mode of multiplication. 

 De Bary, of Strassburg, however, objects to the notion of regard- 

 ing them as fungi, and is disposed to combine them with the 

 Nostocacese- which are generally grouped with the algae, and 

 which also multiply by equal subdivision— and to give the name 

 to the entire family of Schizophytes or fission plants. 



Morphology. — The individual cells, in common with all other 

 members of the vegetable kingdom, have walls of cellulose with 

 protoplasmic contents, the outer part of the cell-wall being 



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