212 BACTERIA IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR 



mentions such a gelatinous molasses derived from a colonial sugar-refinery, 

 and which yielded a pasty sediment consisting of the zoogloea of Leuconostoc 

 mesenterioides on dilution with water. It should be remembered, when deter- 

 mining the sugar-content of a molasses by polarisation, that the mucinous 

 envelope of Leuconostoc is optically active and deflects the beam of polarised 

 light three times as much as an equal weight of saccharose. 



It may be mentioned as a curiosity that E. Durin who regarded the chief 

 component of the mucinous masses of Leuconostoc as cellulose took out a patent 

 in France (Feb. 14, -1876) for the "conversion of crystallisable sugar ( = cane- 

 sugar) into cellulose, and any uses (preparation of starch-sugar, dextrose, gun- 

 cotton, oxalic acid, &c.) to which this cellulose maybe applied" (Brevete sans 

 Garantie dn Gouvernement ! ). 



A fission fungus ranking along with Levconostoc in so far as its importance 

 to the sugar industry is concerned was examined by A. KOCH and H. HOSAEUS (I.). 



In a certain sugar-works the syrup de- 

 stined for working up into second pro- 

 duct was found to contain gelatinous 

 masses resembling the zooglcea of 

 Leuconostoc, but consisting of another 

 species of bacterium, shown in Fig. 56. 

 The special peculiarity of this microbe 

 is that the swelling of the membrane 

 is unusually great and extensive on 

 one longitudinal side only, so that a 

 long peduncular mucinous thread is 

 F,G. 5 6.-Bacterim P ediculatum. $&! formed in this direction. 



A. Koch and H. ifosaeus.) was named Bacterium pedicidatum. 



Unfortunately, it could not be ob- 



tained as a pure culture. ]n respect of this peculiar unilateral gelatinisation 

 of the cell membrane it is not unique ; the Bacterium vermiforme (the chief 

 constituent of ginger-beer yeast, shown in Fig. 53), and also a fission fungus 

 (Nevskia ramosa) discovered by A. FAMINTZIN (I.) in aquarium water, having 

 similar characteristics. Moreover, in the algse, forming the neighbouring group 

 to the bacteria, and especially in the diatoms, many genera, e.g. Gomphonema, 

 exhibit well-developed and branched gelatinous stalks. 



161. Mucinous Fermentation and Inversion. 



The faculty of rendering sugar- juice mucinous is not restricted to the two 

 microbes just described, a number of other species being now known to be capable 

 of working similar injury. They, however, differ from the former in one cha- 

 racteristic, which, though unimportant for the practical man, is nevertheless 

 not without interest from a physiological point of view. The gelatinisation of 

 the nutrient media infested by the microbes described above must be charac- 

 terised as direct, since it is produced by the swollen cell-membranes of the 

 organisms themselves. Conversely the gelatin-forming property of the species 

 now to be described is an indirect one, it being here a question of the conversion 

 of sugar (outside the cell) into the mucinous matter which A. BECHAMP (II.) 

 proposed to call Viscose. In fact, we have to do with the actual production of 

 mucus, whereas the former case was one of zoogloea formation. 



E. KRAMER (II.) in 1889 described a Bacillus viscosus sacchari which belongs 

 to this second group. The cells are rod-shaped, i /i thick and 2.5-4 /i long, 

 united into many-jointed chains ; neither locomotion nor endospore formation could 



