Scientific American Supplement, No. 643 | Page 6

its place, they also resort to
an entirely new mode of movement.
One of these forms is Heteromita rostrata, which, it will be
remembered, in addition to a front flagellum, has also a long fiber or
flagellum-like appendage that gracefully trails as it swims. At certain
periods of its life they anchor themselves in countless billions all over
the fermenting tissues, and as I have described in the life history of this
form, they coil their anchored fiber, as does a vorticellan, bringing the
body to the level of the point of anchorage, then shoot out the body
with lightning-like rapidity, and bring it down like a hammer on some
point of the decomposition. It rests here for a second or two, and
repeats the process; and this is taking place by what seems almost like
rhythmic movement all over the rotting tissue. The results are scarcely
visible in the mass. But if a group of these organisms be watched,
attached to a small particle of the fermenting tissue, it will be seen to

gradually diminish, and at length to disappear.
Now, there are at least two other similar forms, one of which,
Heteromita uncinata, is similar in action, and the other of which,
Dallingeria drysdali, is much more powerful, being possessed of a
double anchor, and springing down upon the decadent mass with
relatively far greater power.
Now, it is under the action of these last forms that in a period varying
from one month to two or three the entire substance of the organic
tissues disappears, and the decomposition has been designated by me
"exhausted"; nothing being left in the vessel but slightly noxious and
pale gray water, charged with carbonic acid, and a fine, buff colored,
impalpable sediment at the bottom.
My purpose is not, by this brief notice, to give an exhaustive, or even a
sufficient account, of the progress of fermentative action, by means of
saprophytic organisms, on great masses of tissue; my observations have
been incidental, but they lead me to the conclusion that the
fermentative process is not only not carried through by what are called
saprophytic bacteria, but that a series of fermentative organisms arise,
which succeed each other, the earlier ones preparing the pabulum or
altering the surrounding medium, so as to render it highly favorable to
a succeeding form. On the other hand, the succeeding form has a
special adaptation for carrying on the fermentative destruction more
efficiently from the period at which it arises, and thus ultimately of
setting free the chemical elements locked up in dead organic
compounds.
That these later organisms are saprophytic, although not bacterial, there
can be no doubt. A set of experiments, recorded by me in the
proceedings of this society some years since, would go far to establish
this (Monthly Microscopical Journal, 1876, p. 288). But it may be
readily shown, by extremely simple experiments, that these forms will
set up fermentative decomposition rapidly if introduced in either a
desiccated or living condition, or in the spore state, into suitable but
sterilized pabulum.

Thus while we have specific ferments which bring about definite and
specific results, and while even infusions of proteid substances may be
exhaustively fermented by saprophytic bacteria, the most important of
all ferments, that by which nature's dead organic masses are removed,
is one which there is evidence to show is brought about by the
successive vital activities of a series of adapted organisms, which are
forever at work in every region of the earth.
There is one other matter of some interest and moment on which I
would say a few words. To thoroughly instructed biologists, such
words will be quite needless; but, in a society of this kind, the
possibilities that lie in the use of the instrument are associated with the
contingency of large error, especially in the biology of the minuter
forms of life, unless a well grounded biological knowledge form the
basis of all specific inference, to say nothing of deduction.
I am the more encouraged to speak of the difficulty to which I refer,
because I have reason to know that it presents itself again and again in
the provincial societies of the country, and is often adhered to with a
tenacity worthy of a better cause. I refer to the danger that always exists,
that young or occasional observers are exposed to, amid the
complexities of minute animal and vegetable life, of concluding that
they have come upon absolute evidences of the transformation of one
minute form into another; that in fact they have demonstrated cases of
heterogenesis.
This difficulty is not diminished by the fact that on the shelves of most
microscopical societies there is to be found some sort of literature
written in support of this strange doctrine.
You will pardon me for