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_ January 22, 1914] 
NATURE 
581 
and Alexandre Mary, in which they told me that they 
had confirmed my experiments. Following my direc- 
tions implicity, they had, after some months, found 
typical Torulz and Micrococci within ‘the tubes, and 
had convinced themselves that they were actual living 
organisms. Thus, in regard to the latter, they say: 
“Jes ayant inoculés dans des solutions de glucose a 
2 per cent. avec une légére quantité de lactate de fer, 
les microcoques plus haut décrits ont proliféré d’un 
fagon remarquable, et la culture a offert l’aspect d’un 
sédiment se réunissant au fond des tubes.” 
This adhesion to my views by Albert and Alexandre 
Mary should be a complete answer to the second 
objection, so often formulated, that the bodies found 
by me were only plasmogenic products such as Leduc, 
Herrera, they themselves, and others had previously 
described as occurring in colloidal solutions, and should 
go far towards meeting the final doubt—the only one 
open to those who in this country have seen what 
they believed to be actual organisms taken from my 
tubes, namely the doubt whether the organisms, which 
they were bound to recognise as such, were still 
living. 
(3) This brings me to the final objection advanced 
by some. They admit that many at least of the bodies 
that have been photographed are organisms, but 
believe them to be merely organisms that pre-existed 
in the solutions, and which, when found, were dead, 
having been killed by the sterilising process to which 
the tubes had been submitted. 
As to this, it must never be forgotten that minute 
organisms are either very scarce or not to be found 
at all in ‘‘control’’ tubes opened soon after sterilisa- 
tion, and to be often abundant after months in other 
tubes of the same series which have been exposed to 
light and heat and which had never previously been 
opened. If they were not there at first, and are there 
in numbers subsequently, how are we to resist the 
conclusion that they are living, and that they have 
developed and multiplied within the previously steri- 
lised tubes ? 
In illustration of this important point I may state 
that I have recently received from New York two 
slides containing swarms of stained bacteria. These 
were taken by Dr. Jonathan Wright, the director of 
the Post-graduate Laboratories there, and his prin- 
cipal bacteriologist, Dr. MacNeal, from tubes which 
they had prepared and sterilised. They had been re- 
peating my experiments, at first with negative results 
—-even though three of their tubes had been inoculated 
with a culture of the hay bacillus previous to the 
triple heating. The organisms on the slides sent to 
me had been taken from tubes of two other series— 
one of them sterilised fifteen months, and the other 
four and a half months previously. The experi- 
menters had some doubts at first whether the very 
numerous bodies on the first slide were really bac- 
teria, though no such doubt was entertained by Dr. 
Hewlett or myself. In the second case they reported 
that they had found what were unquestionably bac- 
teria in ‘‘enormous numbers.’”’ They now, at first, 
inclined to the belief that notwithstanding their 
enormous numbers the bacteria found must have been 
*‘in the original materials.’ But in the last letter 
received from Dr. Wright he reported that they had 
made a bacteriological examination of the materials 
in question with negative results. He adds: ‘So far 
as we have gone, therefore, we cannot take refuge in 
the supposition either that these organisms are crystal- 
line simulacra of life, or that they were derived from 
the original materials, and were killed but not dis- 
integrated by the triple heating. We have no sugges- 
tion to make other than your interpretation, and in- 
deed we desire to be entirely non-committal as yet.” 
NO. 2308, VOL. 92] 
I am, therefore, waiting for information concerning 
the examination of other tubes of these two series. 
These facts would seem sufficiently to answer the 
third objection now under consideration. Still, one 
very remarkable example of this kind ought to be 
cited. A series of five tubes containing sodium silicate 
and pernitrate of iron was boiled for twenty minutes 
on May 17, 18, and 19, 1912, and these tubes were 
exposed to light and heat in the usual way. At the 
expiration of seven and a half months (December 9, 
1912) I opened one of these tubes, and took from it 
a small amount of reddish sediment, similar to that 
which existed in each of the others. On microscopical 
examination I found in this sediment two minute 
masses of mould associated with compound spore-like 
bodies such as I had never seen before. I sent the 
specimen to an eminent authority, Mr. Geo. Massee, 
of Kew, and was told that the mould with its peculiar 
spores was allied to the genus Oospora. At the end 
of February of last year another of these tubes was 
opened by Profs. Hewlett and Shattock; early in 
March one was opened by me in the presence of 
Profs. J. B. Farmer and V. H. Blackman; and in 
May another was opened by me in the presence of 
some bacteriologists and chemists at the Lister Insti- 
tute, and in each case more or less of the characteristic 
Oospora spores 
were found. The 
mycelium was not 
in each case 
found, and I 
know that some 
of the observers 
were sceptical as 
to the nature of 
the spores. 
The last of 
these tubes was 
kept by me _ for 
some future occa- 
sion, and was not 
again particularly 
noticed until July 
a2 Then, on 
examination of the Fic. 2.—Portion of a large tuft of mould 
unopened tube, (Oospora) which was seen growing at the 
much to my sur- bottom of tube No. 358. 325. 
prise there was to 
| be seen at the bottom, by the side of the 
sediment, two tufts which had all the appear- 
ance of being moulds, one of them about half 
an inch in diameter and the other  smalier. 
These were seen by many others, in the unopened 
| tube, who took the same view as to their nature. 
On October 3 this tube was opened by Prof. Hewlett 
in his laboratory, and he took therefrom, as I ex- 
pected, some of the Oospora. Portions subsequently 
taken by me were photographed, and one of them 
is shown in Fig. 2. That this mould had grown 
| within the sterilised tube is perfectly clear; yet several 
of those already mentioned had failed in their various 
efforts to obtain cultures from samples that were found 
in the other tubes. 
Successful cultures of organisms obtained from the 
tubes may occasionally be obtained by inoculating 
some of the organisms found into sterilised 3 per cent. 
glucose or ammonic tartrate solutions. Torulze will 
often multiply or moulds will develop asa result, after 
several days, in such solutions. Fig. 3 shows a 
number of Torula which had thus multiplied within a 
glucose solution after six days. 
Another and a more ready means of proving that 
the organisms taken from the tubes are living has 
i been commonly adopted by me. The cover-glass of 
