A. LIAUTARD. 
263 
ciple : fermentation accompanies life without air; a principle 
which, I am persuaded, will one day predominate all our knowl¬ 
edge upon the physiology of the cell. 
In the first hours of the development of our vibrio, whose 
rapidity, especially to the contact of the air, is very great, it has 
the form of small bodies, very short, whirling upon themselves, 
turning and waddling about, soft, gelatinous and flexuous, which 
are easily seen. Soon all motions cease, and then they exactly 
resemble the bacterium termo ; like it, it is slightly narrowed in 
its length, though it is essentially different from this bacterium. 
If you inoculate a few drops of the culture of that organism 
under the skin of a guinea-pig or of a rabbit, pus will soon form 
and be detected after a few hours. The following days an 
abscess is formed, and in this a great quantity of pus is found. 
This, it may be said, has nothing surprising, as we know that, in 
the state of our knowledge, any solid object, fragments of coal, 
of wool, all give rise to suppuration. 
I will add even that these last experiments have been made 
by us, with materials first warmed and free from microscopic 
germs ; but the activity of our microbe, considered as a generator 
of pus, should he even enjoy this power only as a solid substance, 
is noticably increased by the fact of its possible multiplication in 
the body of animals. 
To satisfy us, the following experiment will suffice: A culture 
of this organism is divided in two halves—one is warmed to 100 
or 110 degrees; the microbe is killed, without alteration to its 
form or size; these equal portions of the two liquids are inocu¬ 
lated into two animals alike. It is easy to observe that the 
inoculation of the liquid which has not been warmed up gives 
rise to a greater quantity of pus than the other which produces it 
as an inert body would. Let us suppose that if the pus obtained 
from these two animals are separately cultivated; that the one 
which comes from the animal which has been inoculated with 
warmed organisms, remains perfectly sterile, while the other, 
which has received the non-warmed organisms, reproduces this 
easily and abundantly. 
At any rate, here is a new microscopic organism which may 
