'Journal St li^i'/] Development of Moms Lens. 197 



Professor Sigri calls the attention of the French Academy to the 

 j)resence of Bacteria in the hlooci in typhus. Dr. Salisbury has 

 sbown the connection of a Palmella with intermittent fever ; Dr. 

 Lund, of Manchester, has called attention to " Germs " in hospital 

 wards ; Professor Lister's valuable researches on Carbolic Acid ; the 

 question of Vibrio in Influenza ; * Mr. Dancer's paper " On Milk ;" 

 Mr. Staniland Wake's observations on Mineral Infusions; Dr. 

 Angus Smith and Mr. Dancer's Bottle experiments, and JMr. Spencer 

 Cobbould's treatise on Entozoa — all bear upon the great subject in 

 question. 



Empirical practice always precedes explanation, and the surgery 

 of the day, preserved meat practice, the stillette corking of wine, 

 and the occlusion of "preserves;" have already applied the facts 

 long before the modus medendi has been interpreted. 



Abundant evidence of the presence of Monas Lens in all liquids 

 containing vegetable matter is found in every investigation, and in 

 the air in varying quantities at different times;! also as having 

 been observed escaping from the primordial utricle of masses of 

 chlorophyll within the tubule into the vacuole in Confervte ; as 

 assuming its own rotatory movement on escaping from the primordial 

 utricle of isolated masses of confervoid growth ; as escaping from 

 the bursting tubules of Vaucheria ; as passing to forms which are 

 undistinguishable from those recognized as stages of Oscillatoria, 

 &c. For confirmation, see Franz Qnger on Yaucheria, Berkley, 

 ' Brit Algae,' p. 27 ; Agardh on Conferva ^rea, Harvey, p. xxvii. ; 

 A. H. Hassall, Introd., p. 14 ; and Hicks. | In the last case the 

 germs are apparently more develoj)ed.§ I have seen full-sized 

 Euglena in the tube of Vaucheria in active motion. 



These zoospores of Algae present an ajDpearance precisely simi- 

 lar to that of Monads found in the air, as also to those found in 

 infusorial researches. The form is similar, their movements are 

 similar, and so far as microscopy at present teaches they are 

 identical. There is much evidence that Mucor Mucedo, Vibrio, and 

 Monas, result from, or, at any rate, are coincident with the presence 

 of more or less air and light, and it would appear that liquids or 

 substances (from which ah* is entirely excluded) do not develop 

 protozoal growths. 



Feb. 6th, 1870. — Examined a bottle containing crushed grass 

 and water, corked, in hght, since November 17th, 1869. No signs of 

 moving life. 



* My own observations on the nasal discliarges in influenza have failed to 

 detect organisms, being constantly obstructed by tlie formation of crucial crystals 

 of sodic chloride, called by the miero-photographer^i "crystals of the human 

 breath." 



t See " Jottings." 



X " Gonidia of Mosses : " ' Trans. Liu. Soc.,' p. 581. 



§ See " Jottings," Jan., 1870, p. 28. '' Observations on the Birth of Euglena," 

 April 11. 



