BACTERIA 31 



pabulum. Pasteur found that fermentation is due to obligate anaerobes 

 and he defined fermentation as life without oxygen. However, this 

 does not mean that all life without oxygen results in fermentation. 

 The growth of bacteria of this group is favored by the presence of 

 reducing agents in the medium. Anaerobic bacteria may grow in the 

 presence of free oxygen provided there are present aerobic organisms 

 which absorb all the oxygen. The development of tetanus is favored 

 by puncture wounds, also by the presence of aerobic bacteria. 



Structure. In the higher plants and animals, all cells capable of 

 multiplication consist of protoplasm and nucleus. There has been 

 much controversy among bacteriologists concerning the structure of 

 the bacterial cell. Some say that this cell has no nucleus because, with 

 the analine dyes, it stains uniformly. Others say it is all nucleus 

 because the staining which it takes throughout is nuclear. These are 

 the two extremes, but most agree that the greater part of the bacterial 

 cell consists of nuclear material. Fats and waxes have been accumu- 

 lated especially by those organisms, as the tubercle bacillus, which 

 have lived so long as parasites. Food material, inorganic salts, fer- 

 ments and various extractives are present in the bacterial cell, but 

 for the most part it is of nuclear composition. Its chief function is to 

 multiply, and this is accomplished in the simplest possible way by 

 nuclear division. Most authorities define bacteria as low forms of 

 plant life. The one characteristic and constant constituent of the plant 

 cell is cellulose. This certainly does not exist in the pathogenic bacilli 

 and bacteria are not plants. This seems certain unless we radically 

 change our conception of the plant cell. Bacteria may be more 

 properly defined as nuclei, probably protected by a protein ectoplasm. 

 I and my students have devoted many years of work to this subject 

 and we have shown that chemically the greater part of the bacterial 

 cell is nuclear substance. It contains two carbohydrates, one of which 

 has been located in the nucleic acid group while the position of the 

 other has not been determined. It yields phosphorus and xanthin 

 bases and when broken up with acids or alkalies supplies mono-amino 

 and diamino acids. Chemically, bacteria are nucleoproteins. It has 

 been assumed by some that, chemically, bacteria are of simple struc- 

 ure. This is pure assumption and rests solely on the fact that, 



