HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 



pure culture period. This may equally well be called the biochemical 



period. 



The taxonomic part of this literature was scattered through several 

 languages and represented many schools of nomenclatorial thought. The 

 man who had seen only three or four Aspergilli found no difficulty in sep- 

 arating them. Each used his own descriptive terms— adequate for his 

 purpose but useless to the next man with different species. Saccardo 

 just published them all. Critical analyses were not available. 



In The Aspergilli (1926) as a monograph, Thorn and Church sought to 

 bring together all of this taxonomic literature, as published before that 

 date, and to present a critical opinion as to the proper relationship of the 

 species described, whether retained in the genus or placed elsewhere. 

 Some 350 names were thus accounted for, but the actual number of species 

 accepted as known in culture or probably determinable from existing 

 literature was given as 69 (p. 252). These were more or less arbitrarily 

 considered in 11 groups. In undertaking to account for all the described 

 forms, it was deemed advisable to include, in the various groups discussed, 

 many forms whose published descriptions were inadequate for positive 

 identification, but complete enough to indicate their affinities with known 

 sections of the genus. Citation of these species in the older literature might, 

 therefore, be traced to group relationship, and in that way, correlated with 

 more recent studies of the same or related organisms. In addition, certain 

 names were listed as entirely unidentifiable and certain other forms as 

 belonging to other genera. 



Various other proposals for this purpose have been made. Blochwitz 

 in 1929 published his long-delayed "System und Phylogenie," with inter- 

 pretations and proposals for grouping quite different from those of Thorn 

 and Church. Neill (1939) reduced the species recognized to the larger 

 aggregates, paying little attention to details of head and spore formation. 

 George Smith (1938), seeking industrial utility, simplified his descriptions 

 and introduced many photomicrographs. He discarded the literature 

 for the most part and undertook to guide the worker to the larger groups 

 which could be located principally by color and shape of head, as shown by 

 his figures. Dodge (1935) keyed all species whose names appear in medical 

 literature, from their descriptions but without studying them in culture. 

 In 1939, Biourge prepared a manuscript analysis of the genus for the 

 Third International Microbiological Congress in New York. His associate, 

 Dr. Simonart, came to represent him, but left because of the war. The 

 paper was not presented but was transmitted to us because return to the 

 author was impossible. Biourge died somewhat later. His scheme of 

 classification prepared in his last years is not presented because it contains 

 many things too bizarre to do justice to a man who for many years was a 

 master workman, as well as a valued friend. 



