STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 307 



of lenticular vibrios, with refractive corpuscles, we observed the 

 fermentation, which, for some unknown reason, had been very 

 languid, suddenly become extremely active, but now through 

 the influence of ordinary vibrios. The gemmules with brilliant 

 corpuscles had almost disappeared ; we could see but ver}^ few, 

 and those now consisted of the refractive bodies alone, the bulk 

 of the vibrios accompanying them having undergone some 

 process of re-absorption. 



Another observation which still more closely accords with 

 this hypothesis is given in our work on the silkworm disease 

 (vol. i., page 256). We there demonstrate that, when we place 

 in water some of the dust formed of desiccated vibrios, con- 

 taining a host of these refractive corpuscles, in the course of a 

 very few hours large vibrios appear, well-developed rods fully 

 grown, in which the brilliant points are absent ; whilst in the 

 water no process of development from smaller vibrios is to 

 be discerned, a fact which seems to show that the former had 

 issued fully grown from the refractive corpuscles, just as we see 

 colpoda issue with their adult aspect from the dust of their 

 cysts. This observation, we may remark, furnishes one of the 

 best proofs that can be adduced against the spontaneous gene- 

 ration of vibrios or bacteria, since it is probable that the same 

 observation applies to bacteria. It is true that we cannot say 

 of mere points of dust, examined under the microscope, that 

 one particular germ belongs to vibrio, another to bacterium ; 

 but how is it possible to doubt that the vibrios issue, as we see 

 them, from an ovum of some kind, a cyst, or germ, of deter- 

 minate character, when, after having placed some of these 

 indeterminate motes of dust into clean water, we suddenly see, 

 after an interval of not more than one or two hours, an adult 

 vibrio crossing the field of the microscope, without our having 

 been able to detect any intermediate state between its birth and 

 adolescence ? 



It is a question whether differences in the aspect and nature 

 of vibrios, which depend upon their more or less advanced age, 

 or are occasioned by the influence of certain conditions of the 



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