428 SPIRILLUM CHOLERA ASIATICS. 



thinks that he has proved that the comma hacilli form part 

 of the cycle of development of a mould fungus (Perono- 

 spora). Recently Hueppe* has described a resting form 

 of the comma hacilli. As the nutrient soil becomes 

 exhausted long twisted threads are in the first place 

 formed ; then at one part of such a thread we have the 

 production of two spheres which are only slightly larger 

 than the diameter of the thread, and are more highly 

 refracting. After a little two or four other spheres appear 

 along the thread, and at times actual zooglsea heaps, 

 composed of numbers of spheres, are observed. These 

 spheres, which are immobile, do not multiply by sub- 

 division, but, according to Hueppe's direct observations, 

 they gradually lose their refracting power and elongate 

 to form a short rod, which then after further growth 

 assumes the comma form, and subdivides when it has 

 attained the " S " shape. 



Even if this observation of the sprouting of these bodies 

 were correct, and Hueppe has only succeeded in observing 

 it three times, and it is not impossible that in these cases 

 he was deceived on account of the great difficulties of the 

 investigation, it would not necessarily follow that we have 

 here to do with a spore or with a resting form. It is quite 

 conceivable that in the course of the involution of the 

 spirilla a portion of the plasma retains its power of develop- 

 ment, although this portion cannot be looked on as a spore ; 

 such an idea would only be justified when it was clearly 

 shown that this body was distinctly more resistant, and 

 hence of service for the maintenance of the species, and that 

 it could resist drying and concurrence with saprophytes 

 Absence of better than the comma bacilli. Such qualities have, however, 

 any proof of not been demonstrated, either in the case of Hueppe's 



greater resist- S ph eres O r in the case of the resting forms of the authors 

 ing power. 



previously mentioned. Hueppe, it is true, says shortly 



that the spheres observed by him are more resistant against 

 drying than the bacilli; -but on account of the great importance 

 of such a fact this assertion ought to have been accompanied 

 by detailed proof, and this was so much the more required 

 as Koch and his pupils have made very numerous experiments 

 by drying a great variety of cholera cultivations, and among 

 these, doubtless, some which contained Hueppe's spheres, 

 without having met with any exception to the slight resisting 

 power of the bacilli. 



* Fortschr. der Medicin, 1885, Nr. 19. 



