EELATION OF PATHOGENIC TO SEPTIC BACTERIA. 45 



spherical, or rather cuhical and elliptical, or rather rod-shaped 

 spores. The spores are slightly truncated at their ends, and 

 slightly convex where in contact with the sheath. Staining 

 such specimens with Spiller's purple it will be found that the 

 granular as well as the homogeneous protoplasm stains readily 

 and deeply, whereas the spores, both the spherical as well as 

 the oval ones, remain unstained, and therefore contrast well 

 with the rest of the bacilli. This same relation is exhibited 

 by specimens stained with other anilin dyes, but best with 

 gentian violet and Spiller's purple. The different parts of the 

 bacillus threads show a great difference with respect to the 

 number of spores. In some places there is for long distances 

 a single cubical or oblong spore contained in the thread ; in 

 others they are more numerous ; and still in others they 

 follow one another as numerously as the elementary cells. It 

 is found that wherever a spore appears it is at once either 

 cubical or elongated, and conspicuous by its glistening appear- 

 ance and remaining unstained. The cubical ones when ripen- 

 ing become elongated, but always remain of the bright 

 appearance ; it is further true that each cubical spore belongs 

 to an elementary cell, but where this latter has become elon- 

 gated and slightly constricted, preceding division, as mentioned 

 on a former page, we may find two such pores contained in 

 it. In some places the cubical spore remains single in the 

 oblong cell. The elongated spores are as a rule placed parallel 

 to the long axis of the bacillus ; but in some places I have 

 seen one or the other spore placed in a diagonal direction. 

 The elementary cell containing a spore still possesses a trace of 

 protoplasm around the spore ; but this remnant of proto- 

 plasm sooner or later breaks altogether away, and the spore is 

 free pf it. I have, however, seen spores which after having 

 left the sheath of the thread, still showed at one end a trace 

 of the protoplasm. 



According to the facility with which spores are formed in 

 a cultivation we find the number of spores formed in a bacillus 

 thread varying. In some threads every cell for some distance 

 may develop a spore, in others numerous cells remain always 



