1892.] THE MICKOSCOPE. 177 



Esoteric Beauty and Utility of the Microscope — IT. 



By EPHRAIM CUTTER, M. D., 



NEW YORK, N. Y 



iVSTHMATOS CiLIARIS AND GrIP. 



Epidemic influenza, or grip, is not a new disease, but it varies 

 in prevalence as any other disease. American microscopy has 

 furnished views of grip which are positive and tangible. 



In 1877, June 20, 1 was in Cleveland, Ohio, studying the causes 

 of disease with Dr. Salisbury. He had the grip and showed me 

 under the microscope in his excretions from the air-passages — 



(a) A dead infusorium called asthmatos, and mentioned in 

 Kents' Infusoria, p. 466, and the ^Nlicrographic Dictionary, 18S3, 

 as a genus of cilio-flagellate infusoria. Characters : free, rounded, 

 with an anterior bundle of cilia and a flagelliform filament. A 

 cilium's length 1 = 1200 (Salisbury). 



(^) A living lively and mature specimen that died under our 

 sight. 



(c) Several young ones which were globular, provided with 

 beautiful cilia, whose motions were as follows : 



(i) Some rotated on their own axes, because of the graceful 

 waving backwards and forwards of the cilia moving together like 

 flails beat in unison. 



(2) Some where the wave motion of the bodies was less than 

 the motion of the cilia. 



(3) Some had an asynchronous movement of cilia ; that is, 

 while one cilium waved to the right another w^as waving to the left, 

 and so on. In other words, the cilia did not move together, but 

 waved independently, and moved symmetrically. The cilia were 

 not arranged in straight lines or side by side, but were planted as 

 trees come up on a conical or rounded hill. Size was on an aver- 

 age about that of the oral mucous corpuscles, which show the so- 

 called Brownian movements. The cilia were as long and longer 

 than the diameter of the globular body. He spoke doubtfully of 

 them, and was not sure of them until the microscope revealed a 

 few of them in the field. He said that sometimes the field is full 

 of them in full activity, and so I have found them. Since this 

 observation many others have been made and published, confirm- 

 ing it. The following additional motions have been observed : 



(«) A specimen has been seen to turn completely over, so that 

 the cilia faced in opposite directions, and then to turn back again 

 to the original position. 



{b) They have been observed to bud. 



(c) To divide by fissure. 



{d^ To have a parturition of a young one which moved from 

 one side of the mother to the opposite, and then issued a new^ be- 

 ing. 



