176 DR. E. KLEIN. 



logie der Pflaiizen/ II, 2, 1876, p. 2G4) the long diameter of 

 the spoies of bacillus of hay and also of anthrax — for both 

 are identical in morphological respects (I.e., p. 275) — 

 amounts to 0-0015— 0-0022 mm. or ^^_ of an inch, 

 whereas the spores of our bacillus are little less than 

 0-0005 mm. or ^,,, of an inch in tlieir long diameter.^ 

 At first I misinterpreted the spores, regarding them as a 

 kind of micrococci, and only after repeated observations have 

 I succeeded in tracing them through their different stages of 

 development. 



After many failures — owing to the introduction and deve- 

 lopment of Bacterium te^-mo — I succeeded at last in obtaining, 

 already in the second generation of original virus, a pure 

 crop of bacillus and its spores. With these I started several 

 separate cultivations, in which the germination of the spores 

 into delicate bacillus, the swarming stage, the rapid multi- 

 plication by division, their growth into long apparently 

 smooth filaments, and, under suflScient access of air, the 

 formation of the bright cylindrical spores could be distinctly 

 traced.^ (No other organisms appeared in these cultiva- 

 tions.) These were again used to inoculate other prepara- 

 tions of aqueous humour, and so on, until I succeeded in 

 obtaining considerable quantities of liquid containing only 

 bacillus and its spores. The last-named animals were 

 infected with liquid of this kind. 



^ In convolutions of filaments the outlines of these latter become 

 gradually lost after the spores are formed. The spores appear now to 

 be embedded in a transparent gelatinous matrix. At the edges of such 

 masses or where they are in a sufficiently thin layer, the linear arrange- 

 ment of the spores can be still recognised. But there is undoubtedly a 

 transparent jelly present in these masses forming the ground substance 

 for the spores and fibres. Professor Cohn mentions (1. c, p. 2G3) a 

 similar jelly in convolutions of hay -bacillus. I entirely differ from Dr. 

 Koch with regard to the mode of germination of the spores of bacillus. 

 Koch states (1. c, p. 28S, and also in his latest paper on IBacteriiv in ' Biol, 

 d. Pfl.,' 2 Bd., 3 Heft.), that it is not the highly refractive spore which 

 directly produces the bacillus, but that the hyaline gelatinous envelope 

 surrounding each spore elongates so as to form the bacillus, while the 

 bright spore-matter itself gradually diminishes and finally disappears. 

 From a priori reason it is impossible to assume that this can be so, viz. 

 that the gelatinous envelope should grow into the bacillus; for Cohn 

 proved beyond doubt that in the case of hay-bacillus tiie spores germi- 

 nate even after having been exposed to boiling heat. Surely this gela- 

 tinous envelope, if living protoplasm, must become, under these condi- 

 tions, deprived of its germinating power. Direct observations proves 

 that in my case the spores possess another membrane within that gela- 

 tinous envelope and during germination this inner membrane is broken 

 at Olio pole and the contents of the spore protrudes and grows out as the 

 bacillus. This is also in accordance with the observations of Professor 

 Cohn, for this authority states (1. c, p. 2C5) " Die 8poren schwoUen etwas 

 an und trieben an einem Ende einen kurzen Keimschlauch." 



