OF PUTREFACTION AND OTHER FERMENTATIVE CHANGES. 323 
fungi were also seen floating in the clear liquid. By the fifth day the specks in 
the mucous deposit had assumed the appearance of coarse grains of white sand, 
and similar granules were sprinkled over the lower part of the inside of the 
glass. I removed one of these granules with “heated” pipette, and examined 
it microscopically. It proved to be a very beautiful torula, composed of pullu- 
lating oval cells of great delicacy, disposed in groups, of which one is repre- 
sented in Plate XXII. fig. 6a. Though not very different in size from the yeast- 
plant, it proved itself to be a totally distinct species, not only by the more 
delicate and less granular character of the cells, but by the fact that it grew 
thus luxuriantly in non-saccharine urine, in which the Torula Cerevisiew will only 
grow with extreme difficulty. For the sake of distinction I may term it Torula 
Ovalis, on account of the oval form of its cells. When ten days had elapsed 
after the mingling of the rain water with the urine, the white granular deposit 
had greatly increased, and some scum was also present on the surface, which 
the microscope showed to consist of the same oval torula. But the two plants 
of filamentous fungi had subsided and had apparently ceased to grow; the 
liquid, though still brilliantly clear and but very slightly affected in odour, 
having doubtless become unfit for their development through chemical changes 
induced by the torula. Another small fungus plant, observed several days 
before upon the side of the glass below the level of the liquid, seemed, however, 
to be still increasing. At this time having occasion to go into England for a 
few days, and being desirous of continuing the investigation, I took some of the 
liquid with me, decanting a drachm of it with “ heated” pipette into a “ heated” 
test-tube about five inches long, which I covered with an inverted test-tube of 
about the same length (of course also “ heated”), and packed the tube vertically 
in a box with cotton-wool. Five days later (on the 28th December), having 
prepared some PasTEur’s solution in a manner which I hoped would ensure 
absence of living organisms at the outset,* I inoculated about an ounce with half 
* In preparing the liquid I deviated to some extent from Pastgur’s formula, which is 100 parts 
distilled water, 10 parts pure sugar candy, 1 part tartrate of ammonia, and the ashes of 1 part of yeast. 
I employed lump-sugar instead of sugar candy, and reduced its proportion by one half, as it seemed to 
me likely to prove somewhat too strong to suit some organisms. Further, as I had not at hand a refer- 
ence to enable me to ascertain how much of the mineral salts Pasteur employed, I used what seemed 
to me about a suituble amount for a fungus to consume, judging from the quantity that I got by 
incinerating a certain weight of yeast; and this, as I afterwards found, was a little more than PasrEurR’s 
proportion. My solution, then, had the following composition :— 
Distilled Water, : : : : d , ‘ 5000 gers. 
Lump-Sugar, . 2 c ‘ 5 : . 250 gers. 
Crystallised Tartrate of Ammonia, : : ‘ : 50 grs. 
Dry Ash of Yeast, . ‘ : : ; : 5 grs. 
making rather more than half-a-pint. The liquid was introduced through a “heated” funnel into a 
“heated” Florence flask provided with a “ heated” glass cap, and was boiled and allowed to cool in 
the pure and covered vessel. A better method of procedure will be described in a later part of this 
communication. 
