146 MEDICAL MYCOLOGY 



Mycelium of short, stout cells, often multiplying by sprouting; zoospo- 

 rangia terminal, producing motile, spherical zoospores which are ejected from 

 the sporangium by the invagination of the basal wall ; conidia in whorls, 

 ovoid, germinating by sprouting; endogenous hypnospores formed on old 

 mycelium. Asci terminal, spherical, 4-spored. 



Type species is Enclomyces tropicalis Acton non Castellani. 



If the observations of the author are correct, this is a very curious fungus 

 with a life cycle quite different from any other genus of fungi known, and 

 the only place where motile gametes or zoospores have persisted in the 

 Ascomycetes. It is possible, however, that flagelliform appendages of gametes 

 similar to those in Spermophtliora were observed, or else that a contamination 

 from some member of the Phycomycetes has been confused with some asco- 

 genous fungus. 



Actonia tropicalis (Acton) Dodge, n. comb. 



Endomyces iropicalis Acton, Indian Journ. Med. Kes. 6: 591-600, 1919; 

 not Endomyces tropicalis Castellani, Centralbl. Bakt. I, 58: 236-238, 1911. 



Monilia Actoni Vuillemin, Champ. Paras. Homme Anim. 84, 1931 nom. nud. 



Producing small creamy patches on the tonsils and uvula in throats of 

 soldiers in Mesopotamia. The patches are difficult to remove but leave no 

 raw bleeding surfaces. There is diffuse inflammation of the uvula, pillars of 

 the fauces, and the posterior pharyngeal wall. In debilitated persons it may 

 extend to the bronchi and bronchioles, causing fatal bronchopneumonia. 



Both sprout cells and mycelium present ; gametes produced in spherical 

 sporangia. Their development is not altogether clear from Acton's descrip- 

 tion, some of the phenomena suggesting proliferating sporangia of Ascoidea 

 or of the Saprolegniaceae. Chlamydospores present. Ascospores budded off 

 the ascus somewhat as in Paracoccidioides. 



On 1% sucrose agar, colony ivory white with raised crenate edges; be- 

 coming creamy yellow and sticky in a few daj's, mycelium also penetrating 

 the agar. On litmus milk, groAvth scanty, acid on the third day without coagu- 

 lation. On Kaulin's solution, slight cream colored growth at the bottom of 

 the tube. Ascospores in 2-6 weeks. On carrot, growth luxuriant, sticky, 

 brown. 



From the stage attained by the Ascoideaceae two other lines of develop- 

 ment diverge. One line has retained the large number of spores in the ascus, 

 developed the ascus as a thick-walled resting spore, with a tendency to delay 

 spore formation until the protoplasm has slipped out of the ascus. The nuclear 

 history of most members of this line is so little known that there is doubt -j.- 

 to whether sex has been retained, although the large nucleus (in some species) 

 in the very young ascus suggests that a fertilization has taken place and the 

 occurrence of spores in tetrads during one stage of development, in several 

 genera, suggests a reduction division. Finally spore number is reduced in 

 some species of the Taphrinaceae to 4 or 8, but so many intermediate forms 

 exist and the number is so inconstant that it has been abandoned as a generic 

 character. Along with this goes the elimination of the thick-walled resting 



