Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/206

194 fetid odor, as though a fermentative process had been taking place in the solution. The fluid was very slightly turbid, and there was a well-marked sediment consisting of reddish-brown fragments, and of a light flocculent deposit. On microscopical examination the fragments were found to be portions of altered muscular fibre, while the flocculent deposit was composed for the most part of granular aggregations of Bacteria. In the portions of fluid and of deposit which were examined, there were thousands of Bacteria of most diverse shapes and sizes, either separate or aggregated into flakes. There were also a large number of monilated chains, of various lengths, of a kind very frequently met with in abscesses and other situations, where pyæmia or low typhoid states of the system exist, in the human subject. There were, in addition, a large number of Torula corpuscles, as well as of brownish, nucleated, spore-like bodies, gradually increasing in size from mere specks, about $1/30000$th up to $1/2599$th of an inch in diameter. Lastly, there was a small quantity of a mycelial Fungus filament, bearing short lateral branches, most of which were capped by a single spore-like body.

—A strong infusion of common cress (Lepidium sativum), to which a few of the leaves and stalks of the plant were added, was inclosed in an hermetically-sealed flask in the same way, heated in the digester at the same time (and therefore to the same temperature), and was subsequently exposed to the influence of the same conditions as I have already mentioned in connection with the last experiment. This flask was, however, opened one week later—that is, at the close of the ninth week after it had been heated in the digester to 270-275° Fahr. Before breaking the neck of the flask, the inbending of the glass under the blow-pipe flame showed that it was still hermetically sealed. The reaction of the fluid was found to be distinctly acid, though there was no notable odor. The fluid itself was tolerably clear and free from scum, but there was a dirty-looking flocculent sediment at the bottom of the flask, among the débris of the cress. On microscopical examination (with a $1/12$th "immersion" objective) much altered chlorophyll existed, either dispersed or aggregated among the other granular matter of the sediment, and among some of this three minute and delicate Protamœbæ were seen, varying in form, and creeping with moderately rapid, slug-like movements. They contained no nucleus, and presented only a few granules in their interior. In the same drop of fluid, and also in others subsequently examined, more than a dozen very active Monads ($1/4000$th of an inch in diameter) were seen, each provided with a long, rapidly-moving lash by which neighboring granules were freely knocked about. There were many smaller motionless and tailless spherules of different sizes, whose body substance presented a similar appearance to that of the Monads—and of which they were, in all probability, earlier developmental forms. There were also several unjointed