22 Cultivation of Microscopic Fungi. [^TumIi"jlTrim' 



suppose these granules, if fungous in their nature, should be con- 

 sidered rather " as an effect of the malady, whether constant and 

 inherent, or altogether fortuitous," " than imagine a deadly disease 

 occurring only under certain rigidly prescribed conditions, as 

 caused by the presence, in the economy of the germs, of fungi 

 notoriously harmless and of universal occurrence." They admit 

 the possibility of these fungi in the fluids of the diseased animals 

 becoming the " carriers of contagium," 



The iiev. IM. J. Berkeley, to whom we are so largely indebted 

 for our knowledge of microscopic and other fungi, in his paper, 

 page 14, vol, ii., of this Journal, thus expresses himself in reference 

 to these small bodies : " But, whatever may be the origin of these 

 minute bodies in question, whether from pre-existent spores or the 

 fortuitous concourse of chemical and other energetic forces, it is a 

 matter of immense importance to ascertain whether they have any 

 real connection with disease, and it is at once obvious that the 

 question as to their origin becomes eminently essential." Every- 

 thing, therefore, which may help forward the difficulty, though it 

 may not overcome it, has its appreciable value. 



It is, perhaps, at this point of interest to notice the curious 

 results marked by Professor Gam gee of cattle driven over the trail 

 of Texan cattle, which themselves may have shown no signs of the 

 disease while alive, conferring the disease upon the new comers in a 

 most fatal manner, yet the survivors of those "animals contami- 

 nated by feeding on Texan trails have not in a single instance 

 propagated the disease to other animals," &c., nor do the originally 

 infected cattle occasion the disease by actual contact. Professor 

 Gamgee remarks, it is "not the breath, nor the saliva, nor the 

 cutaneous emanations which are charged with the poisonous prin- 

 ciple, but the foeces and the urine." The conditions, he states, are 

 modified by weather, season of year, and time. This alone, con- 

 sidering the sad waste of life and actual loss of property to those 

 engaged in the produce of stock, or as " packers " for a vast con- 

 sumption in their own country or in others, where preserved meat 

 may, under emergency or price, influence the markets, is a field of 

 research that cannot be too widely investigated. From the obser- 

 vations of others, speaking of the HI effects of diseased corn in cattle 

 fed with it, he remarks that pigs " acquire a taste for it, and after 

 eating it a few days their bristles drop out, there is an awkward- 

 ness in the movements of the hind legs, and atrophy affects them. 

 Eating the pigs produces no ill effects on man." " Hens lay eggs 

 without shells ; " monkeys and parrots fall down, " unable to rise 

 again." " The indigenous dogs and deer that enter the corn-fields 

 at night suffer in the same way ; " yet, in an experiment, two cows 

 were fed with food, somewhat dry in one case and wetted in the 

 other, and mixed with smut fungi ; the only effect observed was, 



