and Amyloid Hysterophymata. 353 



lield back by the superficial layers of cells in the same way 

 that the humus covering prevents the nutritive salts of plants 

 from sinking into deeper layers of the soil. 



For all these reasons, there is in the portions of tissue 

 serving for experiment, and in the nutritive fluid with which 

 these are surrounded, a great multiplicity of developmental 

 stages and forms of the cells originating and developing during 

 the close of the normal process of vegetation and the com- 

 mencement of the morbid processes of nutrition and growth. 



Moreover the above-described variations of amyloid hyste- 

 rophymata under certain circumstances furnish the most 

 beautiful proof that they are all only developmental forms of 

 Miiller's " Vibrio ^^^ as 1 have already shown in my memoirs 

 on the " Chemismus der Pflanzenzelle," 1869, and on '' Faul- 

 niss und Ansteckung," 1872. These comparatively large 

 bodies, which show nothing of vibratile cilia or other organs 

 of motion (unless we are to reckon as such the still uninflated 

 joint-cells), are seen sometimes moving so briskly in the most 

 different directions in a confused throng, sometimes with the 

 thicker, sometimes with the thinner end forward, the Vibrio- 

 twins and chains like automatic snakes, theXepto^Anu^-filaments 

 sometimes, when they are curved, passing one another in the 

 form of a screw like SpiriUia, swimming with and against 

 the current, and apparently performing voluntary movements, 

 that no one not familiar with the objects can be blamed for 

 regarding these organisms as animals. And yet they are only 

 pathological cell-forms ! as their developmental history teaches 

 us. By the addition of a trace of solution of iodine the move- 

 ment is immediately stopped ; the bodies, which are then 

 coloured blue, lie motionless before the observer. 



The cause of this movement, which, under favourable con- 

 ditions, is extraordinarily brisk, appears to be the evolution 

 of the gases produced from the cell-membrane during the 

 butyric fermentation (about | carbonic acid and ^ hydrogen 

 and carburetted hj^drogen gases). As long ago as 1869 I 

 called attention to this circumstance (Chemismus &c. p. 32), 

 and said that many Vibriones do not lose their mobility even 

 at the boiling-point of their nutritive fluid, as I observed at 

 that time after the conclusion of the distillation of a fluid of 

 this kind containing Vibriones, the fermentation of which con- 

 tinued uninterruptedly after the distillation, although care was 

 taken that no air could penetrate into the vessel which con- 

 tained the fermenting fluid. 



These mobile amyloid hysterophymata, which are produced 

 even when pure water is employed, are obtained in greatest 

 number when a piece of beetroot is digested in a closed vessel 



Ann, & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. xvii. 24 



