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262 THE MICRO-ORGANISMS OF THE HUMAN MOUTH.

most probably proceeded from the mouth. The oral cavity
serves as a gathering-point for this microbe, which from time to
time is carried into the kings with the air until at last, at some
weak point, or as the result'of some slight intlammatorv action
in the lungs through which their power of resistance is impaired,
it obtains a foothold in the lungs themselves. For this reason,
therefore, among many others, the neglected oral cavity furnishes
a most dano-erous source of infection, which has bv no means
O ? ft
received the attention which its importance demands.

h. BacWns crassus sput'KjenKS.
Kreibohm^^^ found twice in sputum and once in the coating of
the tongue a cultivable bacterium which he termed Bacillus

Fig. 112.

af-^

Bacillus crassus sputigencs.
Covcr-glnss preparation from the hoart-blood of a mouse. (Afier Fliigge.) 700 : 1.

crassus sputigenus, which possesses distinct pathogenic proper-
ties.
" Short, thick bacilli, representing olilongs with rounded
corners, often curved or twisted like a sausage. Immediatel}'^
after tissation- the lono-itudinal diameter exceeds the transverse
only by about one-half; afterward the former becomes much
longer, so that before a second fissation the bacilli are three or
four times as long as they are thick (Fig. 112).
" AVe often see bacilli in a state of tissation, or still adhering to