1889.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 31 



call a physician in the night to prescribe for a severe paroxysm 

 of this disease. The good old country doctor came, felt of his 

 pulse, and enquired if he had tried any remedies. " Yes," he 

 replied, " I have been trying remedies all my life, and now I 

 want something to cure me." 



Any treatment of Hay-Fever, to be effectual, must be based 

 on a correct theory of its causation. Recall the fact, that the 

 nasal and pharyngeal capillaries are in a state of engorgement, 

 caused by the action of the nerve-impulses, which start in the 

 plexuses of those parts, on the central cells of the sympathetic 

 system, whose duty is to keep these vessels in a state of contrac- 

 tility. It seems evident from this, that anything, which will 

 cause the sympathetic nerves to regain their normal condition, 

 will relieve this congestion in the capillaries. This is done by 

 the use of Chapman's ice-bags. They must be applied to the 

 spine, and remain there from ten to fifteen minutes, and even as 

 long as an hour, at each attack. After three or four applica- 

 tions, it will be found that the attacks will be warded off, or I 

 may say the disease will be arrested. During the past year, 

 some half dozen cases came under my care. I found the ice- 

 bag to invariably arrest the attacks, and, in one particular case, 

 the attacks have not recurred. Thus far I consider it a cure. 



NOTES ON A NEW OCHRACEOUS THALLOPHYTE. 



BY ALEXIS A. JULIEN, PH. D. 



(Read January iSfA, 1889.) 



In the month of .July, 1886, I observed and collected a 

 curious ferruginous plant-growth, which occurred on the sides 

 and in the basin of a cold spring, at a point on the Shark River, 

 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and which resembled the 

 so-called Leptothrix ochracea, Kiitzing, of Europe, in general 

 appearance. Early in September of the same year, another 

 occurrence was discovered by a friend, which I have since 

 visited and examined, at several points along a large brook, 

 called the Sandburg, near Mountaindale, Sullivan County, New 

 York. Soon after, the same growth made its appearance in 

 tanks of our laboratory, into which water plants from the 



