1887.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 67 



what perhaps is most ominous, fungoid spores will be seen con- 

 tinually, especially the spores of some niacrosporium, which genus 

 grows abundantly parasitic upon languishing vegetation. In 

 the lower left-hand portion of Fig. 5 is a representation of one 

 of these spores adhering to the surface of a hair — a compound, 

 six-celled spore with a lengthened pedicel. These spores vary 

 greatly in their number of cells, and their general outline, but 

 this is a typical specimen. On one occasion fifteen of these 

 spores were found clinging to one hair. Where spores abound 

 there will also frequently be observed threads and meshes of 

 mycelium, extending sometimes over the entire length, and evi- 

 dently upon the surface of the hair ; because the threads of the 

 mycelium can be seen frequently to extend beyond the contour 

 of the hair, and occasionally to send out delicate processes be- 

 yond that contour, nearly at right angles to the general direction 

 of growth. Occasionally within the older, flattened hairs may 

 be detected a very striking nucleated fungoid growth, as repre- 

 sented in Fig. 6. 



The action of the Hairs of the Peach in a case of Hay Fever 

 is probably mechanical. We may well suppose that multitudes 

 of these microscopic needles, lodging in the air-passages, would 

 have the effect of making the inflamed membranes ten times 

 more inflamed. But there may be something more. It may be 

 that the multitudes of pollen-grains and spores, caught in this 

 remarkable trap, so set day and night continually while the fruit 

 is growing, and then liberated on the occasion of their insidious 

 attack, accomplish a chemical and poisonous action upon the 

 exposed and susceptible membranes. 



It may be a sufficient hint on this matter to refer to the rec- 

 ord given in Ziemssen's Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine, 

 concerning the systematic experiments, made upon himself with 

 various substances by C. H. Blackley. When in these experi- 

 ments he used the spores of the mould, pencilliu7?i glaucum, the 

 effects were hoarseness increasing to aphonia, bronchial catarrh, 

 etc., which lasted for some days. (Am. Ed. by A. H. Buck, M. 

 D., 1875, Vol. II., p. 545-) 



Dr. Woakes, in the publication already cited, p. 79, says : 

 "The radical treatment of Hay Fever, as the foregoing observa- 

 tions will suggest, is chiefly surgical." He refers to the removal 

 or reduction of abnormal irritating growths in the nasal pass- 



