FOUND GROWING IN LIVING ANIMALS. 283 



slips of glass, and examining it with a magnifying power of 300 diameters, long 

 tubes, jointed at regular intervals, and giving off several branches, could be seen. 

 They varied in diameter from jgg to 355 of a millimetre, and appeared to spring, 

 without any root, from an amorphous soft mass. Their edges were distinctly de- 

 fined, and the joints composed of distinct partitions, the tubes being in that part 

 constricted somewhat like certain kinds of bamboo. They were very transparent, 

 and some management with the diaphragm of the instrument was necessary to 

 shew them distinctly. They did not appear to contain granules or nuclei. (Plate 

 VH. fig. 1.) 



Interspersed amidst these tubes were numerous round and oval globules, 

 often 7*5 but generally jgg of a millimetre in diameter, which here and there as- 

 sumed the form of bead-like rows. (Fig. 5.) On one occasion I found a perfect 

 branch of the jointed tubes connected with a bunch of these, but this was evi- 

 dently accidental. 



Both the jointed filaments and sporules were developed in great abundance 

 on the sides of the spit-box containing the man's sputa, which, in this situation, 

 was inspissated, and presented a yellowish coherent and viscous layer. Here they 

 were often matted together, and presented the appearance drawn, Plate VII. 

 fig. 2. 



Two days afterwards the man died, and the left lung was found studded 

 with cavities of different sizes, some of which communicated, by fistulous open- 

 ings, with the cavity of the pleura. Several of the smaller cavities were partly 

 filled with soft tuberculous matter, readily separable from the lining membrane. 

 On examining this matter microscopically thirty-six hours after death, exactly the 

 same appearances presented themselves as have been described. Numerous 

 jointed transparent tubes, here matted together, there isolated, were readily ob- 

 served, mingled with round or oval corpuscles, which, however, were larger and 

 more developed. Some of these were of an oblong or truncated shape, and ap- 

 peared to be separated joints of the tubes. (Fig. 6.) 



I have no doubt that these vegetations existed in the man's lungs during 

 life ; first, Because they were apparent in sputa freshly expectorated, and, secondly, 

 Because they could not have reached such a state of development, as has been 

 described, hi thirty-six hours. They continued to grow and develop themselves 

 in the tubercular matter, after the removal of the lungs from the body, as well as 

 in the matter discharged before death, by expectoration. They appeared to me 

 somewhat analogous to the Penicilium glaucum of LINK, or those fungi so often 

 found covering disorganized animal matter ; although the form of the plant, and 

 the mode in which the branches are given off, shew that they are not identical. 



