bacillus

Any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming aerobic bacteria in the genus Bacillus, some of which cause disease.

'This again,' said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, 'is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera - the cholera germ.'

"You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus.

Any bacilliform (rod-shaped) bacterium.

Something which spreads like bacterial infection.

The “bacillus of boom or depression,” he wrote, travels freely “from country to country.”