MORPHOLOGY. 
With regard to the spore-forming bacilli, when 
they can no longer obtain sufficient or proper 
food or surroundings, they shrivel or dry up and 
appear to be dead. They may keep up this sem 
blance for months, but let conditions once more 
become favorable for their development and we 
soon find they not only are not dead but are nol 
even sleeping, merely resting. Place them in 
suitable culture media, for instance, and imme¬ 
diately they begin to germinate and produce in¬ 
numerable micro-organisms of the same variety 
as those from which they sprang. They do not re¬ 
produce other spores at once, but never fail to re¬ 
produce that characteristic variety of bacillus 
which is spore-forming. 
There are certain changes which take place in 
the bacilli when the process of seed or spore de¬ 
velopment is about to begin. Spores, or seeds, 
are made up of tiny particles of the protoplasm or 
active, life-giving substance of which bacilli are 
composed. They form sometimes at one end of 
the rod, sometimes at the other end, and again 
they may form in the center of the rod. They at 
first appear to be just tiny spots, or dots in the 
protoplasm of the parent bacillus, but very soon 
they begin to divide off and are easily distin¬ 
guished under the microscope as tiny seeds ot 
eggs which scientists call “spores.” They rapidly 
increase in size and break through the framework 
of the bacillus, the non-essential part of which 
usually dies and the seeds or spores are left be¬ 
hind in a protecting cover or capsule. This cover 
or capsule is said to enable spores to resist in¬ 
fluences that would very quickly destroy other 
forms of bacteria. The power possessed by 
3i 
Spore 
Forming 
Bacilli. 
Spore 
Formation. 
