"ZraIi;TmT?87o.'''] Cultivation of Microscojnc Fungi. 21 



blotting-paper which had been previously soaked in alcohol and 

 distilled water, and on which the material to be cultivated had been 

 placed." Perhaps a similar employment of a few long fibres of 

 asbestos might be useful, as they could be heated red hot so as to 

 destroy any germs, and if the object to be cultivated was placed 

 half-an-inch from the end, this might be allowed to dip into a small 

 cell having the necessary cultivating solution, and the cell itself 

 surrounded by water for a moist chamber. 



The substrata employed for the nourishment of any fungi 

 present, were of various kinds, natural liquids, animal and vege- 

 table, also solutions of sugar, cane, and grape, and solutions of 

 tartrate, of ammonia, ashes of yeast and water, &c., &c., some boiled, 

 and if filtered, reboiled. 



The experiments are numerous and most interesting, and the 

 conclusion derived from them is " that, in the contagious pleuro- 

 pneumonia of cattle, there is no peculiar fungus-germ present in the 

 blood or secretions, and that the theory of its cryptogamic origin is 

 untenable." 



With the blood from the splenic disease, " which was placed in 

 various substrata, and compared with healthy blood, the results 

 were in all cases the same, ?. e. production of penicillium, coremium, 

 and mucor." 



They found in the blood, bile, and urine of animals slaughtered 

 in Texas, " apparently healthy while alive, yet after death " present- 

 ing characters of splenic fever, " minute bodies corresponding to 

 the micrococcus of Hallier, which exhibit the same behaviour with 

 reagents as the spores of fungi." 



These micrococci are undistinguishable from " similar bodies " 

 found in " any blood in an incipient stage of putrefaction." More, 

 over, cultivation, in various ways, of the blood containing them- 

 failed to invest them with a special and important character. The 

 growths were "composed of the commonest mold, and instead of 

 being unique as to species or even genus, comprised various forms 

 and sizes of cryptococcus, torula, penicillium, coremium, mucor, and 

 the so-called schyzosporangia of Hallier " " either simultaneously or 

 successively developed." Healthy blood they found to yield the 

 same results, but more slowly. 



Ustilago, coniothecium, or tilletia, were not obtained, and as 

 said, " probably due to the circumstance that no specimens of these 

 fungi were ever brought into the room where our experiments ivere 

 conducted " (the italics are ours). These cautious observers thus 

 deduced the hypothesis from their experiments, the cultivation 

 yielding only the commonest molds, "that the disease rather 

 destroys the vitality of the blood to such a degree as to render it 

 capable of supporting and nourishing a low form of these ubiquitous 

 fungi, which perish when introduced into a healthy subject," and 



