THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 331 



history o'i the development, seem to concur in favour of 

 the origination of the cells of the Empusa from the 

 diseased blood K' 



Although much has been written of late years with 

 reference to the existence of germs of fungi in the blood 

 of man, and as to their production of many of the most 

 serious diseases to which he is liable, I have elsewhere 2 

 noted what slight support there is for these various state- 

 ments, and to what a large extent different kinds of evi- 

 dence tend to contradict them. As a matter of fact, such 

 organisms are not to be found in the blood of living 

 persons except in certain rare affections; and doubt- 

 less many of the alleged cases are to be explained by 

 the altogether unwarranted assumption of observers that 

 mere particles, which are so commonly met with in the 

 blood, are fungus-germs — specimens of the so-called 

 ^micrococci' of Hallier'^. 



^ Of course it is not denied that such a disease is capable of being 

 spread by contagion : far from it. We believe that this does occur. 

 The establishment of the mode by which contagion is communicated 

 cannot, however, as some have appeared to thi^, dispose of the more 

 general question. (See Prof. Huxley's Inaugural Address to British 

 Association, 'Nature,' 1870, No. 46, p. 405.) 



' See Appendix E, pp. cxix-cxxvii. 



^ But it must always be remembered that there are particles and 

 particles. Those which are potential fungus-germs cannot be dis- 

 criminated by the microscope from normal blood-particles ; and even if 

 some of these particles were seen to develop into rudimentary fungi, it 

 would by no means prove (as Prof. Hallier and his disciples would sup- 

 pose) that they came from fungi — in the face of what we now know 

 concerning the metamorphosis of milk-globules and other organic 

 products. 



