Shining Fish, Flesh, and Wood 503 



although it persisted in a tube at the low temperature of a freezing 

 mixture. Regarding the cause of the luminescence they say: " We 

 are inclined to believe that it is the effect of a peculiar state of decom- 

 position, totally independent of atmospheric causes, the luminosity 

 residing (to the best of our belief) in the oily matter, which we 

 observed upon submitting it to microscopic observation." 



Johann Florian Heller and Luminous Bacteria 



The final proof of the fungal origin of shining wood and the 

 bacterial origin of shining flesh came from Johann Florian Heller, 

 M. D. (1813-1871), professor of medicine at the University of 

 Vienna. His views on " Leuchten gefaulter Holzer " were first re- 

 ported at the twenty-first Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher and 

 Aerzte at Gratz in 1843. Leibig was the presiding officer. Heller's 

 general paper, " tJber das Leuchten im Pflanzen und Tierreich," 

 was published in 1853. By microscopic observation of luminous 

 wood he determined with certainty that it was the fungal threads 

 alone in the wood that emitted the light and called them Rhizo- 

 morpha noctiluca. He found that the fungus would light when 

 separated from the wood but only as long as it was in vegetative 

 growth and not after death. The light of potatoes, beets, and roots 

 was grouped with that of wood as due to the fungus itself. 



Regarding dead fish and flesh. Heller had a similar explanation— 

 the light came not from any decomposition products containing 

 phosphorus but from a " Pilz " growing superficially on the material. 

 Like the Coopers (1838) , he was able to inoculate dead non-lumi- 

 nous fish with the luminous material and make them light, although 

 in the case of fresh-water fish it was necessary to bathe them in sea 

 water. He wrote: " Die verwesenden und faulenden Tiere leuchten 

 nicht, sondern es leuchtet ein nach dem Tode sich an den Tier- 

 stoffen bildender Pilz, somit wieder eine Pflanze, fur welche ich den 

 Namen, Sarcina noctiluca, vorgeschlagen habe." He also declared 

 that the light of human corpses, sausage, and eggs came from the 

 Sarcina noctiluca, and presumably the light of human sweat and 

 urine, although the explanation of luminous urine was not certain. 

 There is no uncertainty in Heller's statements and we now know 

 that he was absolutely correct.^- This paper, despite its publication 

 in a rather obscure medical journal, is a milestone in the knowledge 

 of " spontaneous luminescences." 



^^ Even after Heller's (1853) paper there were still some who doubted the or- 

 ganismal origin of luminous wood. Th. Hartig (1855) and also DuBary in Hof- 

 meister's Handbuch der Botanik, 230, Leipzig, 1866, believed that the wood itself and 

 not a mycelium luminesced. 



