68 



DR. BASTIATf ON THE 



tation is initiated. Hence it is that this latter kind of change is 

 unsatisfactory, and we need the microscope to tell us whether or 

 not organisms are present. 



It will thus be seen that the fermentation is almost always less 

 vigorous in these superheated hay-infusions than where they are 

 merely boiled ; and its modes of manifestation are almost exactly 

 the same as for urine. I have, however, met with some exceptions 

 to this. Thus, last summer fourteen specimens of a hay-infusion 

 which had been heated to 230° F. for five minutes, and which 

 were subsequently exposed in the incubator to a temperature of 

 122° F., showed many Bacilli-tufts after twenty-four hours, which 

 continued to grow for the next two days, the fluids themselves 

 remaining clear. Then in several of the tubes the fluids, to my 

 surprise, grew^ rapidly turbid throughout. Others, which had not 

 yet undergone this change, I saved therefrom by removing them 

 from the incubator to a cool drawer ; and some of them are 

 still in my possession with the remains of the Bacilli-tufts 

 floating in the clear fluid. Two of these latter tubes I had ex- 

 amined at the time ; and I then found that the tufts were com- 

 posed of Bacilli, and, further, that there were scattered amongst 

 the fibres a sparing number of mostly separate, small, ovoid Torula 

 corpuscles (fig. 7, 2). Here and there these were more numerous 

 and aggregated into clusters. It was not till several months 

 afterwards that I examined one of the tubes in which the contents 

 had become turbid, and which had in the interval been also put 

 aside in a drawer. I then found the fluid more than usually acid^ 

 swarming with short Bacilli, whilst, much to my surprise, the 



Fig. 8. 



a C( 



a, a. Fungus-mycehum. 



h. Torula corpuscles. 



flakes were here composed of beautiful well-developed fungus- 

 mycelia (fig. 8, ^c), which were growing over and more or less con- 



