of the junction of two individual bacilli.  In cultures there always appears a remarkably free development of comma shaped bacilli.  These bacilli often grow out to form long threads, not in the manner of anthrax bacilli, nor with a simple undulating form, but assuming the shape of delicate long spirals, a corkscrew shape, reminding one very forcibly of the spirochaete of relapsing fever.  Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish the two if placed side by side.  On account of this developmental change, he doubted if the cholera organism should be ranked with bacilli; it is rather a transitional form between the bacillus and the spirillum.  Possibly it is a true spirillum, portions of which appear in the comma shape, much as in other spirilla—­e. g., spirilla undula, which do not always form complete spirals, but consist only of more or less curved rods.  The comma bacilli thrive well in meat infusion, growing in it with great rapidity.  By examining, microscopically, a drop of this broth culture the baccilli are seen in active movement, swarming at the margins of the drop, interspersed with the spiral threads, which are also apparently mobile.  They grow also in other fluids—­e. g., very abundantly in milk, without coagulating it or changing its appearance.  Also in blood serum they grow very richly.

Another good nutrient medium is gelatine, wherein the comma bacilli form colonies of a perfectly characteristic kind, different from those of any other form of bacteria.  The colony when very young appears as a pale and small spot, not completely spherical as other bacterial colonies in gelatine are wont to be, but with a more or less irregular, protruding, or jagged contour.  It also very soon takes on a somewhat granular appearance.  As the colony increases, the granular character becomes more marked, until it seems to be made up of highly refractile granules, like a mass of particles of glass.  In its further growth the gelatine is liquefied in the vicinity of the colony, which at the same time sinks down deeper into the gelatine mass, and makes a small thread-like excavation in the gelatine, in the center of which the colony appears as a small white point.  This again is peculiar; it is never seen, at least so marked, with any other bacterium.  And a similar appearance is produced when gelatine is inoculated with a pure culture of this bacillus, the gelatine liquefying at the seat of inoculation, and the small colony continually enlarging; but above it there occurs the excavated spot, like a bubble of air floating over the bacillary colony.  It gives the impression that the bacillus growth not only liquefies the gelatine, but causes a rapid evaporation of the fluid so formed.  Many bacteria also have the power of so liquefying gelatine with which they are inoculated, but never do they produce such an excavation with the bladder-like cavity on the surface.