I 



Meteorology. 47 



climatic influences which produced the exuberant growth of these 

 fungi the same effect in producing a larger number of the smaller 

 organisms which produce the disease that we know as diphtheria, 

 or was the occurrence of the two things a mere coincidence 1 He 

 thought there was more than a mere coincidence in it. Dr 

 Michael Taylor, of Penrith, who was a very careful observer, 

 published a paper a good many years ago in which he attributed 

 diphtheria to growth of fungi in houses in which diphtheria cases 

 occurred. He thought that writer went to an extreme in 

 attributing it to that cause, for with greater extension of our 

 knowledge we were unable to do so. But during the present 

 season he had seen fungoid growths in damp houses, and lie 

 thought there was between that circumstance and the prevalence 

 of diphtheria more than a coincidence. He did not say there 

 was a casual connection ; but the same influences might operate 

 to cause both : the same conditions which favoured the growth 

 of these fungi favoured also the growth of the diphtheria organism 

 in the human subject. 



Mr Lennox inquired whether, to adjust the balance, Dr Ross 

 added the deaths of Dumfries people who might die in prisons, 

 asylums, or infirmaries outside the county 1 



Dr Ross re])lied that he thought no Dumfries people would 

 die in prisons — (laughter) — and the number who died in other 

 institutions outside the county would be so small as to affect the 

 calculations only to an intinitesimal extent. It was only where 

 you had large institutions, such as the Crichton or the Infirmary, 

 that the question became really important ; and he explained 

 that the deaths occurring thei'e of all patients belonging to any 

 part of the county were credited to their proper districts. In 

 reply to a question by Mr Rutherford, Dr Ross said the life 

 history of the diphtheria bacillus was not fully known ; and it 

 was a curious fact that it had been found in the throats of 

 perfectly healthy people. 



