THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 325 



It was ascertained by Bassi in 1835, that one of the 

 most prominent features of this disease was the presence 

 of a Fungus which at first increased and multiplied 

 within the body of the living animal, and, after the 

 death of the worm or moth, made its appearance 

 externally — coming through the skin in various places 

 as a whitish powdery growth. It was afterwards ascer- 

 tained by M. Audouin and others, that the disease 

 was not confined to the silk-worm and its moth, since 

 it could be communicated directly by inoculation to 

 many other species of Lepidoptera; and it could also 

 be engendered quite easily in these and in the silk- 

 worm by shutting them up and feeding them for a time 

 in close damp bottles or boxes. The possibility of 

 inducing a 'spontaneous" outbreak of this contagious 

 disease was always within reach of the experimenter, 

 even in districts which were, so far as all previous 

 knowledge went, wholly untainted. In this respect, 

 muscardine was found to be similar to typhus fever ^. 

 The question arises, however_, whether, in such cases of 

 apparently 'spontaneous' origin, the unhealthy condi- 

 tions merely induce a state of the blood and body gene- 

 rally in which omnipresent, although unknown, spores 

 are enabled to develops or whether the state of the 



^ Muscardine, however, is undoubtedly as'sociated with the develop- 

 ment of a fungus in the blood ; whilst in typhus fever no lower organisms 

 are known to be produced. Their non-existence in the latter disease is 

 further testified by the large number of recoveries. On the other hand, 

 muscardine is invariably fatal. As Audouin says, ' dans tous les cas le 

 resultat est le meme ; aucun de ceux qui sont attaques n'echappe.' 



