36 Objects Seen in Cholera Evacuations. [part i. 



The oidium lactis disappeared entirely in the course of a few days, but no other 

 changes took place for a month, except that the yeast cells degenerated also. 



(6) The portion under the other covering glass showed no evidence of fungal 

 development, nor yet yeast cells or anguillulse. On the sixth day accumulations of 

 perfectly motionless molecules had formed, especially near the edge of the glass, each 

 heap possessing, as usual, a kind of central kernel with a more or less protoplasmic 

 appearance ; the molecules forming the peripheral part of the heap being quite as 

 active as the molecules elsewhere. On the seventh day these heaps were crowded 

 with cells of all sizes. Some of the molecules were larger than formerly ; the greater 

 number of the cells, however, were from about the size of a red blood-corpuscle to 

 four times that size ; the contents of the larger ones being more distinctly molecular 

 than that of the smaller, otherwise no difference could be established between them. 

 It is, however, particularly to be noted that the steps from the minute molecules to 

 the smaller sized corpuscles were by no means so gradual ; it did not appear as if a 

 sufficient number of molecules of the intervening grades existed to enable one to say 

 that the large corpuscle was simply a developed molecule. On many occasions great 

 pains were taken in order to try and settle this question, but each time, although 

 after the formation of heaps molecules have been seen to become, so to speak, 

 swollen, suddenly little corpuscles appeared with undefined outline twice or three 

 times the size of the molecules, and in a few hours the field is crowded with 

 animalculaj. The difficulty of ascertaining this point is due to the suddenness with 

 which these changes take place. After watching a certain little heap for several 

 hours without any appreciable alteration having occurred, the eye becoming tired, 

 it is allowed to stand unobserved for an hour or two. On returning, probably 

 everything is changed ; either the particular heap watched has become altered, or 

 some other heap in the preparation has been more advanced, and discharged the 

 elements of life which it contained, and these animalculai rushing about the field 

 knock the watched little heap over, disturbing its entire geography. This is pre- 

 cisely what occurred in the preparation now under notice. It had been watched 

 all day in order to ascertain whether the swollen molecules would swell still more 

 in the course of the day, but they did not, or (2) whether some of them would 

 coalesce and form one ovum, as believed by Dr. Bennett ; neither did I see this, 

 nor could I learn that the half slimy-looking kernel surrounded by molecules had 

 acquired a clear " nucleus " and formed one body, as advocated by Pouchet, for no 

 appreciable change occurred during those twelve hours. But when examined on the 

 next morning, twelve hours after, a great number of corpuscles of cysts were present 

 in the midst of these " heaps," and several, what seemed to be young paramecia, 

 rushed about in all directions (Plate XIX, Fig. Ixxx). Whatever it was that had taken 

 place, it did not seem to me that one heap had given rise to only one cyst, because 

 three, four, or more of various sizes would be seen on the surface, or what seemed 

 to be the surface of a heap (1). I am ignorant as to what occurred between the 



