286 



ous to the crops of this fruit in Italy and Spain, but he did not like to 

 speak much of its structure and ordinary life history in the absence of Dr. 

 Cooke, who would have rectified his probable errors in this direction. It 

 belonged to the Pyrenomycetes, a family of the order Ascomycetes, in 

 which the receptacle opens by a pore. Its name was Capnodium citri, B. 

 and Des., and in its perfect state may be often seen on the rind of oranges, 

 looking rather like a piece of black shoddy cloth fastened to it, and usually 

 at one of the poles of the fruit. A portion of this, slightly separated and 

 examined in glycerine jelly or balsam, showed a densely matted substra- 

 tum, from which arose the curious, often compound, flatk-shaped recep- 

 tacles, which when ripe burst at the apex and discharged a large number 

 of very minute oval spores. Among the receptacles are some curious 

 clubbed and twisted structures, which are probably barren asci or para- 

 physes. He presumed the fungus was injurious mainly in its mycelial 

 condition, when it permeated the pulp of the fruit and converted it into 

 a black rotten mass, as those oranges on which he had seen it in its spore- 

 bearing state were perfectly sound inside. On this point, however, he 

 was not competent to give an opinion, and it was in regard to another 

 supposed effect of this fungus which induced him to bring it to the notice 

 of the Club. Some two years ago a physician in the South of France, 

 while examining some expectoration from a severe case of whooping- 

 cough, of which there was an epidemic in his locality, found in it some 

 minute spores, and as the orange fungus was also very prevalent at the 

 time, he, after further observation, came to the conclusion that its spores 

 and those in the expectoration were identical. He then obtained some 

 quantity of the spores of the fungus and insufflated them into his own 

 larynx and trachea, with this result,^ hat after a short period of incubation 

 his temperature went up, and a spasmodic cough came on, which ran the 

 same course and had every appearance of being true whooping cough. 

 He (Mr. Karop) was not aware that these observations had been substan- 

 tiated or that the matter had ever been followed up since, and simply gave 

 these statements for what they were worth. 



The thanks of the meeting were voted to Mr. Karop for his communica- 

 tion. 



Mr E. M. Nelson exhibited a model of a diatom — Navicula Durandil — 

 as an illustration of the structure which he described at the preceding 

 meeting. This diatom was one which he had only recently seen ; it was 

 very coarse, and might be considered as a plate perforated with a number 

 of holes. The model was made of a piece of board with holes in it show- 

 ing the ideal of the back and front view — it was like a perforated mem- 

 brane with a strengthening girder which was called the median line. The 

 other diatoms might also be described as strong girder work arranged to 

 support a thin perforated membrane. 



The President, in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Nelson for his com- 

 munication and for the trouble he had taken in making a model, remarked 

 upon the advantages of this method of illustration in conveying a clear 



