276 BACTERIA IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 



peduncular mucinous thread is gradually formed in this direction. 

 On this account this fission fungus was named Bacterium pedicu- 

 latum. Unfortunately, it could not be obtained as a pure culture. 

 In 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 algae, 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. Mueinous' 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, how- 

 ever, differ from the former in one characteristic, which, though 

 unimportant for the practical man, is nevertheless not without inte- 

 rest from a physiological point of view. The gelatinisation of 

 the nutrient media infested by the microbes described above must 

 be characterised 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.) pro- 

 posed 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 ft thick and 2.5-4 /A long, united into many-jointed chains; 

 neither locomotion nor endospore formation could be detected. 

 The organism thrives only on neutral or faintly alkaline nutrient 

 media, and in these it produces, in presence of cane-sugar, a mucus 

 having the elementary formula C 6 H 10 5 . No swelling or gelatini- 

 sation of the cell membranes occurs. The optimum temperature 

 for the reaction is 22 C., but beet-sugar juice will become changed 

 to a viscid mass in one or two days at the ordinary temperature. 



FRITZ GLASER (I.) described as Bacterium gelatinosum betce 

 a fission-fungus discovered by him in mucinous beet-juice. 

 Already by its active motility this species differs from the others 

 we have described ; and the same applies to several other char- 

 acteristics. It does not develop in neutral 10 per cent, molasses, 

 unless the medium has been previously qualified with a little of 

 the precipitate thrown down by alcohol from beet-juice i.e. phos- 

 phates, &c., of alkaline earths extracted from the molasses during 

 the separation and saturation of the sugar-juice. The chief pro- 



