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the articular plates of flies and insects, and the branchial plates of 

 fishes ; but though such was the case it remained to be proved that the 

 animals attacked were in a healthy condition at the time, or whether 

 the fungus did not the rather follow than produce the disease. In 

 other words, it was a moot point whether the bodies of insects were 

 ever attacked by fungus growth while the animals were in perfect 

 health. This was a very important matter in considering the nature of 

 the influence exerted hy fungi in the production and maintenance of 

 disease. 



That the entire bodies of flies, beetles, wasps, bees, moths, and 

 other insects, when affected by fungus, were found, when examined 

 after death, permeated in every direction by mycelium, would be a very 

 significant fact, if we could determine beyond a doubt whether the 

 tissues were not diseased before the advent of the fungus. 



Since, then, it was by a large number an accepted opinion that 

 fungi induced and did not follow disease, it was not to be wondered 

 at that a very peculiar form of disease, met with in India, and believed 

 at the time to attack only the feet of some of the natives who went 

 about with bare feet, should, from a variety of causes, be attributed 

 to a fungus, the more especially as certain bodies found in amputated 

 limbs, or in the matter discharged from limbs attacked, resembled and 

 were thought to be the resting spores of a fungus. Moreover, micro- 

 scopic examination and the planting these black particles so as to 

 enable them to, as was believed, grow, led men of the highest eminence 

 as mycologists to come to the conclusion that the cause of the disease 

 was a fungus, which they believed they had been able to rear from 

 particles obtained from undoubted cases of the so-called "Fungus 

 Foot," or " Madura Foot," of India. 



The first person to describe this disease as of vegetable origin 

 was Dr. H. Vandyke Carter, in i860; the Rev. M. J. Berkeley 

 described and figured the fundus in No. X. of the " Intellectual 

 Observer," vol. ii., November, 1862 ; while Mr. H. J. Carter, F.R.S., 

 described it in 1862 in the " Linnjean Society's Journal" and the 

 "Annals of Natural History," and in 1874 Dr. Carter published a 

 monograph on " Mycetoma," or Fungus Disease of India. All these 

 and other publications went to prove that a fungus was the cause of 

 the disease. Dr. Carter had ample opportunities of examining speci- 

 mens of amputated feet, and matter discharged from affected feet in 



