228 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



produced upon germination hyphae of limited growth (which they called "pro- 

 mycelia"), which bore usually four "sporidia." In 1854 came the discovery that 

 the spores of the genus Uredo were only one stage of the development of a rust, 

 the teleutospores {Puccinia, Uromyces, Coleosporium, Melampsora, etc.) being 

 produced later by the same mycelium that had given rise to the uredospores. 

 These rusts, therefore, had three spore forms, which we now call urediospores, 

 teliospores, and sporidia (or basidiospores). The Tulasne brothers suggested 

 that the absolute proof of this could only be obtained by controlled inoculation 

 experiments which they had not made and which they believed would be very 

 difficult to carry out successfully. In their Selecta Fungorum Carpologia (1861- 

 1865) — perhaps the most sumptuous work of the period, with illustrations whose 

 artistic excellence has never been equaled — were demonstrated the various forms 

 of reproduction of different fungi. It must be admitted that some of the vari- 

 ous spore forms which the authors attributed to the fungi so beautifully and ac- 

 curately illustrated were due to contamination by saprophytes or even parasites, 

 which had nothing to do with the life histories of the fungi under study. Thus 

 a pycnidial stage was described and illustrated for the Erysiphaceae, but later 

 this was demonstrated by De Bary and Woronin (1870) to be a parasitic im- 

 perfect fungus, Cicinnoholus, growing and producing its own pycnidia within 

 the hyphae of the Erysiphaceae. 



Hence it became more and more evident that it was necessary to grow the 

 fungi whose life history was under study from spore to maturity in pure cul- 

 tures, free from the opportunity of access by other organisms. Due credit for 

 the early making of cultures of fungi should be given to the Italian Pier' Antonio 

 Micheli, who lived from 1679 to 1737. In his great work (1729) he described 

 cultures on suitable vegetable media, using the spores of fungi that he called 

 Mucor, Aspergillus, and Botrytis. The media were kept covered by bell-jars 

 and developed only the fungus whose spores were sown upon them whereas 

 similar pieces, not thus covered, developed "Mucor" Micheli's conclusion was 

 that the spores of these various molds were normally distributed through the air. 



The pure-culture study method was in modern times first carried out suc- 

 cessfully by Anton De Bary. He was born in 1831, the son of a busy physician 

 in Frankfurt a. M., Germany. He obtained his M.D. degree at the University 

 of Berlin at the age of twenty-two and immediately entered upon the practice 

 of medicine in his home city. He admitted later that the diseases of his patients 

 interested him only until he was sure of the correctness of his diagnosis, and 

 so he soon gave up his practice, as he jokingly remarked "im Interesse der Kran- 

 ken." In December, 1853, he became Privatdozent for botany in the medical 

 faculty of the University of Tubingen. His biographer, Ludwig Jost (1930), 

 states that he remained there only two years, "zweifellos iDeniger Kolleg lesend 

 als forschend tdtig." He then accepted a call as Professor at the University of 

 Freiburg, remaining there twelve years and gathering around him a coterie of 

 eager students. In 1867 he was called to the University of Halle a. S. where 

 he remained until his appointment in 1872 to the chair of botany at the newly 

 founded University of Strasburg, a position that he held until his death in 1888. 



The botanical laboratory that he established at Freiburg in 1855 was one of 

 the first half-dozen botanical laboratories in the world. He attracted students 

 from many countries by his own boundless energy and by the inspiration which 



