United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To assure ourselves further of the effect of air on the vibrios, we half filled two test tubes with the fermenting liquid taken from another fermentation which had also attained its maximum of intensity, into one of which we passed a current of air, into the other carbonic acid gas.
It is surprising what a remarkable difference is observed immediately between the movements of the vibrios in the bulb and those under the glass.
By and by, however, we see a complete separation effected, and each moves on its separate way with an activity greater than it ever had before." One of the best methods that can be employed for the microscopical examination of these vibrios, quite out of contact with air, is the following.
Hence we are forced to regard them as a distinct species; and so it is possible that there may likewise be aerobian and anaerobian vibrios without any transformation of the one into the other. The question has been raised whether vibrios, especially those which we have shown to be the ferment of butyric and many other fermentations, are in their nature, animal or vegetable. M. Ch.
Only the adult vibrios disappear, burn up, and lose their virulence in contact with air: the germ corpuscles, under these conditions, remain always ready for new cultures, and for new inoculations. All this however does not do away with the difficulty of understanding how septic germs can exist on the surface of objects, floating in the air and in water. Where can these corpuscles originate?
If abdominal serous exudate containing septic vibrios actively growing by fission be exposed to the air, as we suggested above, but with the precaution of giving a substantial thickness to the layer, even if only one centimeter be used, this curious phenomenon will appear in a few hours. The oxygen is absorbed in the upper layers of the fluid as is indicated by the change of color.
This is an illusion arising from the fact that the extremity of these vibrios is curved, hanging downwards, thus causing a greater refraction at that particular point, and leading us to think that the diameter is greater at that extremity.
Although as is well known, movement is not an exclusive characteristic of animals, yet we have always been inclined to regard vibrios as animals, on account of the peculiar character of their movements. How greatly they differ in this respect from the diatomacae, for example!
The chief inference that it concerns us to draw from the preceding facts is one which cannot admit of doubt, and which we need not insist on any further namely that vibrios, as met with in the fermentation of neutral tartrate of lime, are able to live and multiply when entirely deprived of air.
This description is applicable to the majority of the vibrios which occur in cylindrical rods and are homogeneous in aspect. There are others, of rare occurrence in chains, which have a clear corpuscle, that is to say, a portion more refractive than other parts of the segments, at one of their extremities. Sometimes the foremost segment has the corpuscle at one end, sometimes the other.
Word Of The Day