344 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



to become more cylindrical, so as to produce ordinary 

 'Bacteria and Vibriones. Similar phenomena have been 

 testified to by Signers Crivelli and Maggi 1 . These 

 observers watched the union of vitelline granules, and 

 saw them gradually fuse into bodies in all respects 

 resembling Vibrio bacillus^ which in their turn gave 

 rise to distinct Leftothrix filaments. Changes of a like 

 nature were subsequently followed out by the same 

 observers within epithelial cells taken from the back 

 of the tongue of a diabetic patient. In this case the 

 granulations of the epithelial cells, by their union in 

 linear series, formed the rudiments of the future inde- 

 pendent organisms. Moreover, Prof. Hughes Bennett 

 has for several years asserted that such changes habitually 

 take place, and has always laid much stress upon them, 

 since it was in part owing to the occurrence of pheno- 

 mena of this kind that he was induced to propound his 

 c Molecular Theory of Organization 2 .' 



On the other hand, we may watch all the stages by 

 which epithelial cells in an apparently healthy condition 

 become filled with the minutest granules which subse- 

 quently develop into well-formed Bacteria just as parti- 

 cles similarly productive of Bacteria may be seen to 

 appear within the substance of dying Amcebx 3 . If 

 healthy-looking epithelium cells from the inner side of 

 the cheek are mounted and kept in a warm damp 

 chamber, in the course of from twelve to twenty-four 



1 'Rendiconti di Lombardo,' 1868. 2 See vol. i. p. 160. 



3 ee p. 220, fig. 58, i-m. 



