264 DR. E. KLEIN. 



hereby are capable of producing daughter cells; further, the 

 spherical or oval cells in our case become ultimately elongated, 

 so as to contribute to form the typical rods and threads of 

 Bacillus anthracis. These rods give origin, by transverse 

 division, to cubical cells, such as are noticed in the ordinary 

 Bacillus anthracis after staining with anilin dyes. 



We see, then, that the Bacillus anthracis shows two dis- 

 tinct morphological varieties, viz. one : the typical bacillus, the 

 other : a torula-like form ; the cells are spherical or elliptical, 

 and capable of gemmation like a real torula cell, or of di- 

 viding into two, three, or four new cells like a true schyzomy- 

 cetes. The spherical and elliptical torula-like cells elongate, 

 and are transformed into ordinary typical bacillus. The torula- 

 like cells are not spores, nor do they form sporangia. 



An interesting fact that I observed is this, that as time goes 

 on the torula variety, in chains as well as in threads, undergoes 

 the same degeneration which I observed in ordinary cultures 

 of Bacillus anthracis in fluid media, and have described 

 in my paper printed in the January number of this Journal, 

 1883, viz. the protoplasm gradually disintegrates into granules 

 and these gradually dissolving, leave the empty sheath behind. 

 Of a formation of real spores there is nothing to be seen in these 

 cases; such a culture has lost all power of infection. This is 

 another proof that no spores are formed by the torula cells. 



The torula-like cells, while intact, are physiologically just as 

 poisonous as the ordinary Bacillus anthracis, since guinea- 

 pigs and rabbits invariably die of typical anthrax yvhen in- 

 oculated with them. 



The bacillus found in such animals is always the ordinary 

 Bacillus anthracis. 



