AND ITS BEARINGS ON PATHOLOGY 363 
entered from the air of the orchard or of the apartment, possibly also from the 
cow’s teat (though this had been previously washed by drawing milk from it 
just before the glass was charged) ; for you observe every one of the twenty-four 
glasses shows manifest evidence of alteration, and there can be no doubt that 
these changes are due to the development of organisms. No fewer than seven 
of them are seen, by aid of a pocket-lens, to contain filamentous fungi of various 
sorts, for aught I know undescribed, and certainly none of those commonly met 
with in milk." 
Two of the glasses containing filamentous fungi are represented of natural 
size in the sketches reproduced in Figs. 1 and 2, Plate XIV. The other glasses 
present appearances which members of the Society, if they will examine them, 
will find to be exceedingly peculiar. No two are alike: some have a golden- 
yellow aspect (Fig. 8), some a green tint (Fig. 7), while many are studded with 
brilliant red spots (Figs. 3, 4, 5 6) either alone or associated with other colours, 
and the lower parts of the contents of the several glasses are changed to various 
degrees of translucency and shades of tint, implying different fermentative 
changes. But there is no reason to suspect in any of them the occurrence of 
the Bacterium lactis, or the lactic fermentation. I have not had opportunity 
to examine the contents of these glasses microscopically, but in another experi- 
ment made in the same way a few days previously with twelve similar glasses 
I found, just as here, some affected with filamentous fungi, and the majority 
altered in various ways in colour, including definite specks of different shades 
of orange growing gradually as the red ones in this set did from a mere speck 
to larger and larger spots; and, examining with the microscope the contents 
of every one of those glasses, I found the orange specks to be composed of 
organisms in the form of little spherical granules peculiarly grouped, which 
I have elsewhere described under the name of Granuligera ;* and other glasses, 
having alterations without such bright and definite colours, presented bacteria 
of different appearances, but in no case did I find the Bacterium lactis. 
I also performed other experiments of a very simple character which illus- 
trate equally well the rarity of the lactic ferment in the air, even though it be 
the air of a cow-house. The teat of the cow and the milkmaid’s hands having 
been washed with strong watery solution of carbolic acid, milk was received 
directly into a purified flask of the kind above described (p. 356), and from this 
a dozen purified liqueur-glasses were charged in my study within about half an 
* The filamentous fungi most frequently found in milk that is kept for a considerable period are 
the Oidium lactis, the common blue mould Penicillium glaucum, the common green mould of cheese, 
Aspergillus glaucus, and two forms of Mucor, the M. mucedo and M. racemosus. 
*See Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, loc. cit., p. 319, and Plate (p. 275 and Plate VI of 
this volume). 
