x.] BACILLUS. 117 



decomposing albumen, and forms pellicles. In the rods are 

 found oval spores. 1 



(c) Bacillus syncyanus (Neelsen) causes the blue colour of 

 milk after the milk has become acid ; it grows well in am- 

 monium lactate. It consists of motile rods, single or in 

 short chains. Neelsen 2 saw the bacilli assuming a torula-form, 

 the individual cells being hourglass-shaped or oval, or even 

 spherical (compare Bacillus anthracis, Chapter XI.). The 

 rods appear also as a non -motile variety, and are then found 

 to be invested with a thick hyaline gelatinous envelope. 

 The rods form bright oval spores, being at the same time 

 swollen up and ovoid. In Cohn's nourishing fluid they are 

 capable of forming leptothrix, in which occur here and there 

 huge spherical or oval swellings, which, according to Neelsen, 

 probably represent gonidia. 



1 Cohn and Miflet, Beitr. z. Biol. d. Pflanzen. vol. iii. p. 128. 



2 Beitr. z. Biol. d. Pflanzen, vol. iii. p. 187. 



