230 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



Under a strong magnifying power, this micrococcns 

 is seen to be shaped like a lance-head, and short rods, 

 terminating in a cone, are found with it. It is probable 

 that the micrococcus is the early form of the microbe, 

 which becomes a bacillus in the adult form (Cornil). 



The presence of a microbe in pneumonia explains 

 many facts which had remained obscure in this 

 disease, especially the epidemics in a room or house, 

 when several persons living together are successively 

 attacked by pneumonia. It likewise explains the 

 resemblance, which has long been indicated by their 

 common name, between the pneumonia of man and 

 the contagious pneumonia of cattle, which is well 

 known to be essentially epidemic, transmissible by 

 contact and inoculation. 



A culture of the microbe of pneumonia can be 

 made, and when it is inoculated into the tissue of the 

 lung, it produces in animals a true pneumonia. 



XIII. SOME OTHER DISEASES CAUSED BY MICROBES. 



We shall only say a few words about several other 

 diseases, admitted to be contagious, and in which the 

 presence of a special microbe has been ascertained. 



In the pus-corpuscles of gonorrhoea, very minute 

 and mobile micrococci may be observed, often associated 

 in pairs, in fours, or in a small mass, but rarely in 

 chaplets (Fig. 94). 



