RELATION OF PATHOGENIC TO SEPTIC BACTERIA. 37 



in which nothing but a hyaline sheath or tube is noticeable, 

 the highly refractive contents or the protoplasm within the 

 tube being wanting ; as the growth proceeds the number of 

 such threads with empty spaces in their sheath increases, and 

 whole threads of immense length may be found in this condi- 

 tion, i. e. in the state of hyaline tubes or sheaths from whose 

 interior the protoplasm has altogether disappeared. This is 

 always noticed in the growth of the Anthrax bacillus 

 threads in cell specimens; samples taken out at any stage from 

 the cultivation in test-tubes or flasks show the same condition, 

 viz. there are always present longer or shorter threads, which 

 either entirely or partially have become barren of the proto- 

 plasm inside the sheath. In cell specimens, it is possible to 

 ascertain that the growing ends of the threads which may be 

 found in the peripheral part of the drop as straight filaments 

 with a rounded end, are always full of protoplasm, and that the 

 deficiency in protoplasm commences at some distance from the 

 end. By-and-by the greater number of threads may thus lose 

 altogether their protoplasm, and hereby become quite trans- 

 parent and almost lost to sight, but a careful inspection can 

 still detect their presence. Some appear ultimately to break 

 up altogether. This change, viz. the disappearance of the 

 protoplasm in the threads from place to place, is associated, 

 generally but not always and in all places, with the appearance 

 of irregularly sized granules in the tubes, these disappear 

 gradually, becoming evidently dissolved and absorbed, and the 

 then sheath appears at such a place or places quite empty, i. e. 

 without containing any solid protoplasm. These granules are 

 not spores, as I shall show below. I consider it merely a form 

 of degeneration or death of the protoplasm. Another change 

 in the cell specimens is the appearance of spherical corpuscles, 

 either isolated or in close rows or chains; in this latter case we 

 have a thread of regular varicose appearance, not unlike a 

 chain of torulse. The size of these spherical corpuscles is in 

 their best development that of a human red blood-corpuscle, 

 and in aspect are identical with the gonidia of an o'idium or 

 the cells of torula, i. e. within a cell membrane they contain 



