LEUCONOSTOC MESENTERIOIDES. 



271 



these mucinous lumps he described as highly diversified : Coccus, 

 Bacillus, Vibrio. 



In the same year, VAN TIEGHEM (VII.) published a research 

 on the organism producing these mucinous masses, agreeing with 

 his Russian colleague as to its vegetable nature, though with 

 respect to its position in the botanical system he held other views. 

 According to his observations, the development and reproduction of 

 this microbe harmonised so well with those of the blue-green uni- 

 cellular algae of the 

 genus Nostoc, that he 

 felt obliged to call 

 it "white" (chloro- 

 phyll-free) Nostoc, 

 and bestowed on it 

 the new generic 

 name of Leuconos- 

 toc. Contrary to 

 the observations of 

 Cienkowski, who 

 ascribed a copious 

 polymorphism to 

 this fission fungus, 

 Van Tieghem could 

 only discover globu- 

 lar cells, as shown 

 in Fig. 54 (which 

 is made up from 

 the drawings in the 

 original treatise, and 

 is here reproduced 

 on account of its 



historic interest). 

 femce, however, the 

 researches OI this 

 French worker WPI-P 



not performed with 



pure cultures, we cannot go more closely into the details of this 



illustration. 



It was not until 1891 that a thoroughly satisfactory bacterio- 

 logical investigation was made by C. LIESENBERG and "W. ZOPF 

 (I.) on this organism. In the interim, the same gelatinous 

 masses had also been observed in Indian cane-sugar factories by 

 H. WINTER (I.). Adhering to the existing nomenclature, the two 

 first-named workers showed that Leuconostoc mesenterioides has 

 only one morphological form, viz.. a coccus of 0.8 to i.o /x in 

 diameter. This discovery in no wise detracts from the accuracy 

 of Cienkowski's observations, for it must be remembered that he 

 did not have pure cultures at his disposal, but examined a sample 



FIG> 54 ._ L euconostoc mesenterioides. 



Various stages of deve io pm ent of the Zooglcea forma- 

 ion. 9. Two chains of cocci, each exhibiting two 

 nlarged (presumably sporogenic) members. Magn. 



tion 



enlarged (presumably sporogenic) 



about 500. (After Van Tieghem.) 



