304 ON THE GERM THEORY OF PUTREFACTION 
desirable that it should be named, and I have suggested for it the title Ordiwm 
Torulovdes. 
Some other points observed in the investigation of this plant appear of 
sufficient interest to be placed on record. One is, that the spherical toruloid 
cells of the scum of the second urine-glass, when introduced into a fresh glass 
of Pasteur’s solution, produced none of the purely filamentous growth such as 
resulted from the inoculation of the two previous glasses of that liquid with 
the filamentous form of the organism, any threads met with being only of a very 
loose and imperfect character, like that represented at d, Plate IX, while the 
chief product of the development was pairs of oval vacuoled corpuscles, resem- 
bling those of the scum of the urine at an early period. And the result was 
not only a granular deposit on the side of the glass, but a scum upon the surface, 
whereas neither of the other glasses of Pasteur’s solution had shown any scum. 
This difference between the glasses continued as long as they were kept under 
observation ; that inoculated with the toruloid scum still presenting a growth 
mainly of scum, without any filamentous appearance visible to the naked eye till 
the 14th of September, eighteen days after inoculation, while the other two glasses 
had still no scum whatever, and exhibited abundant conspicuous woolly tufts. 
This fact is of itself proof of a very important general truth, viz. that a particular 
habit of growth impressed upon an organism by temporary residence in a new 
medium may sometimes be retained for a long period after it has been restored 
to its former habitat. The effect of the stale urine upon this plant was to sub- 
stitute the corpuscular for the filamentous mode of development ; and although, 
when returned to the Pasteur’s solution, there was a degree of recovery, as 
indicated by the change from the spherical nucleated cells to the oval vacuoled 
corpuscles, and still more by the occasional appearance of coarse imperfect 
threads, yet the original character was not restored during the eighteen days 
of observation. And this circumstance is the more interesting, when it is 
remembered that the corpuscular variety appeared to differ from the filamentous 
in fermentative power, the former being more energetic in its effects on urine 
than the latter. Facts of this kind may tend to elucidate points of great im- 
portance in the history of contagious diseases, such as the greater virulence of 
such disorders at some periods than at others. For it seems highly probable 
from analogy that the materies morbi may be of the nature of minute organisms ; 
and if this be the case, we can understand, from what we have seen of the plant 
under consideration, that differences of energy in the virus may be occasioned 
by varying circumstances. 
The failure of the plant to resume the filamentous habit when returned to 
Pasteur’s solution, makes it the more remarkable that it should have recovered 
