The Croonian Lecture. Microscopical observations on the suspension of the muscular motions of the Vibrio tritici

Abstract

The Vibrio tritici is a small worm which infects wheat, being the immediate cause of that destructive disease called Ear Cockle, or Purples. Upon examining the grains thus diseased, the author found them to be the unimpregnated germens, containing masses of a white and apparently gluey mucus, which might be removed in the shape of a firm ball, and which, when immersed in water, and viewed through the microscope, displayed hundreds of minute worms in lively motion. When these worms had become perfectly dry, and apparently entirely lifeless, they again recovered upon being moist­ened with a drop of water, and were as lively as before. To determine the origin of these animals, Mr. Bauer undertook a series of experiments, which convinced him that the spawn or eggs were conveyed into the cavities of the germens by the circulating sap. In these experiments he inserted some of the worms into sound grains of wheat, suffered them to germinate, and found the worms in different stages of their growth in the stalk, and ultimately in the germens.