412 QUARTERLY CHRONICLE OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



themselves, and reproduce. He is very particular in declai'- 

 ing that they have no vibratile cilium. No one recently has 

 ascribed any such organ to them excepting, it appears, Joh. 

 Liiders. Grimm finds that atmospheric air is necessary for 

 the activity of Bacteria. He doubts Polotebnoff's asser- 

 tion to the contrary. There was air in the water con- 

 taining the fungus-spores from Avhich PolotebnofF fancied 

 he saw them develop. Without air Bacteria cease their 

 movements, die, and decompose. As to the origin of 

 Bacteria, Grimm believes they arise from the protoplasm 

 of other organisms. He describes minutely their deve- 

 lopment from the protoplasm of cells in diseased cattle. 

 Professor Gobulew confirms his assertion, saying that he has 

 seen Bacteria develop from the blood-corpuscles of Frogs, 

 Avliere they appear, if the corpuscle is kept in the moist 

 chamber, as minute granules. Grimm observes that he has 

 no objection to urge to the supposition that minute germs, or 

 spores of Bacteria, exist in the cells and blood-corpuscles 

 studied by him, which develop after death into Bacteria, 

 excepting that, if they are there, they are so minute as to be 

 quite indistinguishable from the granules of the living proto- 

 plasm itself. Grimm appears to have used good objectives, 

 system 9 of Hartnack, and, in many cases, the system 15 

 a immersion, which ought to give sound results .on this ques- 

 tion if any glass can, Grimm regards Bacteria, then, as 

 organisms produced ' heterogenetically' from the protoplasm 

 of other organisms. He admits that the asserted spontaneous 

 generation of Fungi and Infusoria is devoid of any proper 

 evidence to warrant its belief, but does not on that account 

 think it necessary to reject the irregular origin of Bacterium 

 or Vibrio, as made out by him. Of course, this supposition 

 of the origin of Bacterium, from the protoplasm of other 

 organisms, has, again and again, been advanced by various 

 writers. It is impossible to prove the absence of minute 

 germs, from the protoplasm of the cells of higher organisms, 

 and equally difficult to demonstrate their presence. More 

 observers are needed. 



Occurrence of Minute Parasitic Organisms as causes of 

 Abscess.— Von ReckHnghausen ('Centralblatt,' No. 45, 1871) 

 states that he has found colonies of minute organisms having 

 the characters of " micrococcus," identical with those found 

 by other observers in diphtheria, giving rise to the abscesses 

 which occur in a whole series of infectious diseases, viz. 

 pyaemia, puerperal fever, typhus, acute arthritis, infiltration 

 of urine, and gangrene of the lung. They were especially 

 abundant in the kidneys. Organisms diff'ering somewhat from 



