Like all bacteria, these rodlike bodies have the power of indefinite multiplication, and in the bodies of infected animals they produce death by rapidly increasing in numbers and producing substances which poison the body.
"Special Report on Diseases of Cattle"
U.S. Department of Agriculture J.R. Mohler
It was an irregular gray oval, about sixteen inches by four at its widest and tapering up in front to a cone about six inches high, into which a rodlike member, darker gray, was slowly collapsing and dribbling oily yellow stuff.
"Four-Day Planet"
Henry Beam Piper
One aimed a rodlike contrivance at him, and there was another flare of light.
"The Secret of the Ninth Planet"
Donald Allen Wollheim