Sept. 1, 1867.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GO SSIP. 



207 



or animal structures, such as the cells that cover 

 over the mucous or liuiug membrane of the intes- 

 tines, and seem to have the power of growing at the 

 expense of the latter, which they therefore destroy 

 Hallier soon set to work to cultivate this growth, 

 and in due time produced a microscopic plant which 

 possessed characters that allied it in nature to a 

 fungus, which constitutes the white masses seen in 

 the 'thrush' of infants, and which belongs to a 

 genus called Oidium. This oidium afterwards bore 

 as fruit other forms of growth, which rank with 

 ' mildews ' and moulds. Varying his experiments, 

 Hallier procured, under conditions similar to those 

 which obtain in cholera, a phase in the development 

 of the fungus which exactly resembled a form 

 which grows on diseased cereals, and is called 

 Urocystis. It occurs in true cholera excreta. (It 

 must be noticed here that microscopic fungi assume 

 in the course of their growth, under the influence of 

 different circumstances, a diversity of form, and that 

 what are now known to be varieties were formerly 

 regarded as distinct species.) Well, Hallier infers 

 from his experiments, and especially his inability to 

 produce the urocystis form of fungus except in the 

 contents of the intestines of cholera patients, that 

 this form is not indigenous in Germany, but that it 

 has travelled with cholera from India. He does not, 

 moreover, believe that 'the original habitat of the 

 fungus should be the human intestine, which is 

 under much the same conditions in India as in 

 Europe ; but he sees in the high temperature of the 

 intestine a condition capable of maintaining this 

 fungus in activity. A similar high temperature, as 

 provided by the mean climate of India, and by the 

 extreme summer climate of Europe, also furnishes 

 the condition requisite for the development of 

 the fungus outside the body. Thus in summer, 

 and in summer only in European latitudes, could 

 the fungus find in earth and night-soil the neces- 

 sary temperature for its increase.' The uro- 

 cystis form, then, that which is supposed to be 

 peculiar to cholera, requires a high temperature for 

 its life, and it is confidently asserted by Hallier 

 that if it be the contagious agent or material of 

 cholera, cholera 'cannot maintain itself permanently 

 in our latitudes,' because of the cold which exists. 

 Hallier then believes that this cholera fungus travels 

 in the intestines of cholera patients from India ; and 

 he has pointed out the source from whence it may 

 be possibly derived. Hallier ' recalls the fact that 

 other forms of the fungus under consideration (for 

 variation in form is characteristic of fungi) are 

 peculiar to cereal plants, and that the urocystis with 

 its characteristic cysts, inhabits the delicate and 

 highly nitrogenized tissues of grasses ; and he asks 

 whether the cholera cysts may not also, in then- 

 native soil, be parasites to some graminaceous plant 

 in India, just as the form (tilletia) which can exist 

 in an European climate is a parasite upon the 



imported cereal wheat, which acclimatizes itself in 

 these .latitudes.' We now come to the most inter- 

 esting part of the matter. It seems that the fungus 

 experimented upon by Hallier is identical with 

 that which grows upon the rice-plant when in an 

 unhealthy condition, and it is therefore important 

 to consider whether diseased rice has any influence 

 upon the development of cholera. When the 

 cholera was first studied by English physicians, it 

 was called in India the 'rice disease' {morbus 

 oryzeus). In the year 1S33, Dr. Tytler, in a paper 

 which he had read before the Medical Society of 

 London, stated ' that he was prepared to submit to 

 the members a statement of facts of the utmost 

 importance, in proof of an opinion which he enter- 

 tained that the disease which had been described 

 under the name of the Asiatic cholera, and which 

 was said to have arisen in Jessore in ;1S17, was 

 occasioned or kept up in India by the consumption 

 of unsound rice as an article of food.' Dr. Tytler 

 exhibited various samples of 'ergoted' rice in 

 London, and found rice of a like character selling 

 in the shops. Many travellers and others have at 

 different times called attention to the fact of intes- 

 tinal ailments having been produced by the use of 

 diseased rice." 



ZOOLOGY. 



Incakcerated Erogs — A near neighbour, upon 

 whose veracity I can rely, recently opened a drain, 

 when he made the following discovery. At the 

 mouth of the drain were placed two large stones, in 

 measurement nearly two feet square, and three 

 inches thick ; the one at the top rested closely upon 

 the one beneath. Upon lifting it from the lower 

 stone, the skeletons of five frogs were discovered ; 

 they were in a circle in the centre of the stones, 

 quite flat. Upon taking one of them up, and holding 

 it to the light, there was only a threadlike appear- 

 ance of bones between the dry, flattened, and flesh- 

 less skins : these skins were clear, and beautifully 

 marked. In this state they were seen by several 

 persons, and by each of them the frogs were con- 

 sidered to be dead ; but when the water commenced 

 to flow over them, there was a slight gasping per- 

 ceived in the throats of each, by degrees the bodies 

 swelled, and life and motion returned ! Then, to 

 the surprise of the beholders, the frogs sprang up, 

 and ran away into the drain. How did these frogs 

 get beneath the stone that covered the lower one so 

 closely ? There was no space for them to enter or 

 depart, and upon the surfaces there was not the 

 slightest indention made by the frogs. It was sup- 

 posed to be thirty years ago since the stones were 

 placed over the drain.— S. G., Benenden, Kent. 



Fly Acarus.— My friend Mr. S. having captured 

 a fly for the purpose of microscopical amusement, 



