7 
In the case of pox among sheep, a micrococcus was de- 
tected, which produced at last the Tvlletia lolit, a fungus 
which occurs on the different species of Lolium in Europe. 
In cholerine of the human subject, a micrococcus was found 
in the stools, which gave, when cultivated, the Tilletia caries ; 
and the stools in Asiatic cholera contain a micrococcus 
which produces, under culture the Urocyotis oryze. I may 
here point by the way, to the singular relation existing be- 
tween the Tilletia carves and the Urocystis oryzce, and to the 
conclusions drawn therefrom by Prof. Hallier.* 
It is evident that the establishment of this theory would be 
of the utmost importance. It would furnish a scientific basis 
for methods both of cure and of prevention, and it would show 
how it is that epidemics repeat themselves. The general loss 
by the recent epizodtic, has been large enough to awaken 
interest ; and the facilities for carrying out such researches 
are perhaps greater in the United States than anywhere else. 
With Dr. Endemann, I should wish that the investigation 
may be taken up by others, to correct what little we have 
found, and to improve upon it. 
In the belief that these fungi might prove to be the causes 
of the epizodtic, a series of experiments was undertaken to 
ascertain the action of certain well-known chemical agents 
upon them, with the following results. Carbolic acid, and 
the sulphates of iron, zinc, and quinine, were found to arrest 
* The facts alluded to, which are of much interest, and perhaps but little 
known save to mycologists, may be summed up as follows :— 
The spores of Tilletia caries, which grows very abundantly in Germany upon 
the leaves of wheat, produce under cultivation several sub-generations, which 
were long regarded as distinct species and genera, especially Penicillium crus- 
taceum, Mucor racemosus, and Achlya,—of course under different conditions 
of life. These are all open-air (aerophytic) forms. If the spores of these, or 
of the Tilletia, are placed in liquids, they again produce different forms, as 
Cryptococcus cerevisiz, present in all alcoholic fermentations, Oidium lactis, 
found in the fermentation of milk, etc. The spores of all these reproduce, in 
our climate, the original Tilletia. 
The spores of Urocystis oryzee, which is a characteristic parasite upon the 
Ea .t India rice-plant, as its name implies, will produce these same subgenera- 
tion's when cultivated in like manner; but from the spores of these latter, at a 
temperature in the medium not higher than 85,° the Tilletia is reproduced in- 
stead of the parent Urocystis. 
The stools of diarrhoea in its milder forms, as cholerine,’etc., contain large 
quantities of micrococcus which will produce Tilletia, but not Urocystis. The 
latter is developed in the case of true cholera. That is to say, in the lighter 
forms of diarrhoeal diseases, we find the microcoecus of the Northern fungus ; 
while in the deadly Eastern type, we have that of the parasite on Indian rice. 
Wheat, we know, is indigenous in Asia; formerly the Urocystis may have grown 
on it, or perhaps a mother-fungus of both this and the Tilletia; but during long 
cultivation in a Northern climate, the fungus may have changed in the energy 
of its physiological action. 
