THE NUMBER OF SPORES. 63 



a perusal of Kern's treatise shows that this inquirer confirmed 

 by observation the germination of the doubtful spores into new 

 rods. A third species in which this unusual fruitfulness has been 

 observed is the above-named Bacillus i?iflatus, in which, how- 

 ever as is shown by Fig. 1 7 the situation of the spores is not 

 polar, but central. E. KRAMER (I.) reports that the Bacillus 

 saprogenes vini III., isolated by him from turned wine, swells up 

 at first at one of its poles and develops an endogenous spore 

 therein, another spore being then formed in the handle of the 

 drum-stick form thus produced ; so that two spores are developed 

 in the same cell. 



The formation of more than ttvo spores in a single cell has 

 hitherto been noticed in but one species of fission fungus; the 

 Spirillum endoparagogicum. This was repeatedly observed by 

 SOROKIN (I.) in a small pool of rain-water collected in the cavity 



FIG. 18. Spirillum endoparagogicum. 



C, vegetative cells ; A, two cells, one 

 with two and the other with three 

 endospores. {After Sorokin.) 



FIG. 19. Bacillus tumescens. 



Chain of seven cells, six of which have 

 developed one spore apiece, whilst 

 the seventh and central cell has re- 

 mained barren. Its plasma is granu- 

 lar. (After A. Koch.) Magn. noo. 



of an old black poplar tree. A representation of this microbe is 

 given in Fig. 18. In A is seen a cell containing two, and another 

 with three endospores, and Sorokin found as many as six in a cell. 

 The attempt to obtain artificial cultures of this organism was as 

 little successful as in the case of so many other spirilla, there 

 being (it may be mentioned en passant) up to the present only a 

 few known species wherein attempts of this kind have succeeded. 

 The first of these species is that which was isolated as a pure 

 culture by ESMARCH (I.) from putrescent fluid, and which formed 

 rose -red colonies (Spirillum rubrum) ; the second is the Spirillum 

 desulfuricans, discovered and thoroughly investigated by BEYER- 

 INCK (II.), which readily reduces sulphates to sulphides. A third 

 is the Spirillum luteum developing a citron-yellow colouring 

 matter obtained by H. JUMELLE (I.) from a bog; and the fourth 

 is the Spirillum marinum, described by H. L. RUSSELL (II.) 

 as a frequent inhabitant of the mud and water of the Bay 

 of Naples. The spirilla, as MUHLHAUSER (I.) has shown, are 



