1 



NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Dr. Klein's supposed Mycelial Growth in Sheep-pox. — The 

 remarkable appearances detected by Dr. Klein in the tissues 

 of sheep suffering from variola ovina, which were con- 

 sidered by many eminent naturalists after inspection of his 

 preparations to be parasitic organisms similar to the myce- 

 lium of a fungus, have been proved to be artificially produced 

 coagula of albuminous matter. Dr. Klein^s report to the 

 medical officer of the Privy Council and his drawings were 

 reprinted in this Journal last year. At the last meeting of 

 the Royal Society, in June, a paper was read by Dr. Creigh- 

 ton, lately engaged in the Brown Institute, in researches on 

 the pathology of cancer, in which that gentleman showed 

 that appearances similar to those obtained by Dr. Klein 

 were obtained abundantly in preparations of healthy tissue 

 treated when perfectly fresh with hardening reagents. Dr. 

 Creighton's preparations consisted chiefly of sections of the 

 mammary gland. In a note read at the same time Dr. 

 Klem accepted the explanation of the mycelium-like appear- 

 ances given by Dr. Creighton. Though the supposed proof 

 of the parasitic nature of variola has thus been swept away, 

 it must not be supposed that there was not large justification 

 for regarding the coagula as specific organisms. The fila- 

 mentous branched and knotted appearance which they 

 presented was strangely like that of an organic growth. 

 Their minuter structure, whilst differing from that of an 

 ordinary fungus- mycelium in showing no differentiation of a 

 cell-wall, agreed with such in the presence of vacuole-like 

 spaces and in the excessively fine granular character of the 

 supposed protoplasmic substance. In many cases the 

 branching filaments met togetlier and formed a network, 

 which is unlike any growth exhibited by an ordinary fungus- 

 mycelium, but suggestive of a naked protoplasmic mycelium, 

 similar to that of the Myxomycetes. Whilst we have, then, 

 lost, or rather not gained, an advance in our knowledge of 

 the contagium of variola, we have gained a very important 

 lesson in the necessity for being on our guard as to such 



