42 DR. E. KLEIN. 



they change into rod-like cells, again thinner than the oval 

 cells. When the latter stage is reached we have already to do 

 with the typical thread of an Anthrax bacillus. In some 

 such threads there are seen numerous places in which the pre- 

 ceding stages of oval cells and of spherical gonidia can be easily 

 recognised. We have, then, here before us a new form of 

 growth of the Bacillus anthracis very similar to that of an 

 o'idium growing in a fluid. 



The diminution of the bacillus mass in the artificial cultiva- 

 tions in test-tubes and flasks described on a previous page is 

 due to the degeneration and disappearance of the protoplasmic 

 cells ill the threads, so that at first the transparent sheaths are 

 left, and they also break up ultimately. This degeneration takes 

 place chiefly on the plan of a gradual granular disintegration 

 of the cells within the sheath. In the first stage of this pro- 

 cess, and especially if the preparation has been stained, it is 

 noticed that instead of the cubical mass of protoplasm repre- 

 senting one cell, we find either one large granule or a delicate 

 dumb-bell joined by a shorter or longer thin pale bridge. 

 These appearances I have seen in many places in undoubted 

 Anthrax bacillus threads; of an accidental admixture 

 there can be no manner of talk, since the general sheath passes 

 uninterruptedly over all unaltered and altered cells. In a 

 further stage of disintegration the granules dwindle down, and 

 are ultimately altogether lost. Koch figures Q Unter u. path. 

 Organismen,' Plate vii, fig. 39) thin bacilli showing a similar 

 appearance to that just described ; In Koch's case they were 

 not Anthrax bacilli, and Koch does not decide whether 

 this appearance means spore formation or not. I am quite 

 confident it has nothing whatever to do with spore formation, 

 although I at first thought this to be the initial stage of it (see 

 Cohn and Koch); but in my case there is at no time to be 

 seen in them a trace of a bright oval spore. The whole pro- 

 toplasm of a thread may give origin to these granules ; they 

 become smaller and smaller and more numerous, and 

 irregularly distributed in the sheath, and ultimately altogether 

 disappear. 



