DEVELOPMENT OF THE BACTERIA. Tit 
closed abcesses, in cysts, in urine drawn from the 
bladder, ete. 
§ 2.— NUTRITION AND RESPIRATION OF THE 
BACTERIA. 
The bacteria, being organisms composed of a 
cell membrane of cellulose, and of protoplasmic 
contents, deprived of chlorophyll, must receive 
nutriment and respire in the same manner as all 
the colorless vegetables and all the inferior animals 
deprived of special apparatus, — that is to say, by 
endosmotic absorption. 
Although the media in which the bacteria de- 
velop are various, yet, from the point of view of 
the nutritive function, they act everywhere ac- 
cording to the same laws. No matter in what 
medium they live, they must have water, nitro- 
gen, carbon, and oxygen, as well as certain min- 
eral salts which enter, but in quantities exceedingly 
minute, into the chemical constitution of all organ- 
ized bodies. 
Water. — This element is indispensable to the 
active life and development of the bacteria. Dessi- 
cation arrests completely the movements of those 
which are mobile, and the functions of all the 
bacteria in general; but it does not kill them, 
at least if it be not prolonged beyond a certain 
time. The Micrococci of different kinds of virus 
are examples of the continued vitality of these 
organisms after dessication for a considerable time. 
