180 Transactions of the Society. 



in the work of fermentative destruction, each aids in splitting up into 

 lower and lower compounds the elements of which the masses of 

 degrading tissue are composed ; while apparently, each set in turn 

 does, by vital action coupled with excretion, (1) take up the sub- 

 stances necessary for its own growth and multiplication; (2) carry 

 on the fermentative process ; and (3) so change the immediate pabulum 

 as to give rise to conditions suitable for its immediate successor. 

 Now the point of special interest is that there is an apparent adapta- 

 tion in the form, functions, mode of multiplication, and order of 

 succession in these fermentative organisms which is deserving of study 

 and fraught with instruction. 



Let it be remembered that the aim of nature in this fermentative 

 action is not the partial splitting of certain organic compounds and 

 their reconstruction in simpler conditions ; but the ultimate setting 

 free by saprophytic action of the elements locked up in great masses 

 of organic tissue — the sending back into nature of the only material 

 of which future organic structures are to be composed. 



I have said that there can be no question whatever that Bacterium 

 termo is the pioneer of saprophytes : exclude B. termo (and therefore 

 with it all its congeners), and you can obtain no putrefaction. But, 

 wherever in ordinary circumstances a decomposable organic mass, say 

 the body of a fish, or a considerable mass of the flesh of a terrestrial 

 animal, is exposed in water at a temperature of 60° to 65° F. 

 B. termo rapidly appears, and increases with a simply astounding 

 rapidity. It clothes the tissues like a skin, and diffuses itself 

 throughout the fluid. 



The exact chemical changes it thus effects are not at present clearly 

 known, but the fermentative action is manifestly concurrent with its 

 multiplication. It finds its pabulum in the mass it ferments by its 

 vegetative processes. But it also produces a visible change in the 

 enveloping fluid, and noxious gases continuously are thrown off. 



In the course of a week or more, dependent on the period of the 

 year, there is — not inevitably, but as a rule — a rapid accession of 

 spiral forms, such as Spirillum volutans, S. TJndula, and similar 

 forms, often accompanied by Bacterium lineola, and the whole inter- 

 spersed still with inconceivable multitudes of B. termo. 



These invest the rotting tissues like an elastic garment, but are 

 always in a state of movement. These again manifestly further the 

 destructive ferment, and bring about a softness and flaccidity in the 

 decomposing tissues, while they without doubt, at the same time 

 have, by their vital activity and possible secretions, affected the 

 condition of the changing organic mass. There can be, so far as my 

 observations go, no certainty as to when, after this, another form of 

 organism will present itself; nor when it does, which of a limited 

 series it will be. But in a majority of observed cases, a loosening of 

 the living investment of bacterial forms takes place, and simul- 

 taneously with this, the access of one of two forms of my putrefactive 

 monads. They were amongst the first we worked at; and have 



