PART III.] 



The Spirillum in Recurrent Fever Blood. 



595 



identification becomes impossible owing to their mixing with other molecules in the 

 field. 



I am not in a position to offer any suggestion as to which is the normal course 

 for bacilli to take, seeing that bacillus-filaments may re-develop under suitable conditions 

 from material derived from preparations in which either of the two foregoing processes 

 has been observed to take place. Probably, to a greater or less extent, both processes 

 occur together ; at least it is seldom that filaments will give rise to the bright, refractive 

 molecules, in a highly nutritious fluid, without a contemporaneous formation of plastides 

 taking place at some part of the preparation. 



G .— The relation of the Spirillum of Recurrent Fever to other known Spirilla. 

 Having thus endeavoured to prove that no sufficient grounds have been adduced 

 for accepting the doctrine that bacilli have been found in splenic disease, septicaemia and 



Fig. 52 . . y 650 diam. 



Si)ir'dhtm {^SpiroclKete) pUcatile. 



(After Cohn.) 



Fig, 51 ... . X 600 diam. 



Spirillum (^Spirochcete) Ohermeieri. The spirilla among blood-cells * * in 

 active movement. Those marked * sketched a short time before the 

 cessation of the fever. (After Weigert ; published by Cohn.) 



SO forth, which differ, not only in any material respects, but in any respects whatsoever, 

 from bacilli which may be found under certain easily induced conditions, it remains to be 

 seen what evidence there exists to show that the other member of the schizomycetes 

 group found in recurrent fever — Spirillum Ohermeieri (Fig. 51) — differs from other 

 spirilla known to be harmless. 



On this point also considerable diversity of opinion exists, though perhaps not quite 

 to so marked an extent as with respect to the microphytes which have just been 

 considered. The matter is, moreover, made somewhat simpler from the circumstance 

 that those who have had the greatest opportunities for personal observation are, on the 

 whole, the observers least inclined to claim for this spirillum specific character in the 

 ordinary botanical sense of the term. 



Since the period of its discovery in the blood by Obermeier it has been referred 

 to under various names : Spirothrix, Protomycetum, recurrentis, in Lebert's article on 



