MOEPHOLOGIOAL VARIETY OF BACILLUS ANTHEACIS. 263 



diminish, and the greater amount of the growth is com- 

 posed of the typical smooth, thin threads, with here and there 

 an indication in them of a spherical or elliptical torula- 

 like cell. 



I am indebted to my friend Dr. George Maddox for some 

 photographs which he made of some of the specimens ; the 

 figures 6, 7, and 8 are exact copies of them. This gentleman 

 has kindly furnished me with an abstract of a description by 

 Dr. Antoine Magnin (translated by Dr. Sternberg, of Boston) 

 of certain unpublished observations by M. Toussaint, according 

 to which this experienced observer has seen the Bacillus 

 anthracis growing in a "Ranvier's" moist chamber at 37 — 

 40° C, undergo changes, by which the protoplasm in some 

 becomes collected into larger or smaller spherical or elliptical 

 sporangia, each of tliem yielding several " spores." The mem- 

 brane finally bursts, and the " spores " are freed. Toussaint 

 has seen these spores undergo germination and elongation into 

 typical Anthrax bacilli. There can be no doubt that some 

 of my torula-like cells correspond to Toussaint's sporangia. I 

 have repeated Toussaint's experiments, but could not see the 

 freeing of the " spores." I do not consider the granules 

 present in the cells to be spores ; I have only been able to see 

 that the protoplasm of the cells divides into two, three, and 

 four ; but each of these is capable of growing up into a large 

 spherical or oval cell. These granules are not spores in 

 any sense, at least not in that sense in which are the bright, 

 highly-refractive oval corpuscles that appear in the threads of 

 Bacillus anthracis, and in other kinds of bacilli when 

 they are supplied with sufficient amount of oxygen. The 

 granules stain well in anilin dyes, the typical spores do not. 

 The small cells derived by gemmation and division from our 

 larger spherical cells, are identical in structure and in value with 

 their parent cells, but the typical bright oval spores of Anthrax 

 bacillus are, as is well known, altogether different structures 

 from the parent cells. 



In our case the oval or spherical cells, no matter whether 

 large or small, are capable of division and gemmation, and 



