264 REV. M. J. BERKELEY, 



These views are so well known that it is scarcely necessary 

 to refer to them at any great length. Suffice it to say that 

 Dr. Carter believes that he has shown that the disease is 

 caused by a distinct fungus — a peculiar red mould, which 

 has not been seen except in connection with Madura-foot. 

 This mould was first observed by Dr. Vandyke Carter in 

 May, 1861, "upon part of a diseased foot which had been 



placed in water for maceration The next occasion of its 



occurrence was during the following year, in the month of 

 April, in connection with a specimen of Mycetoma preserved 

 in spirits ; and again, also about the same date, the mould 

 was seen on some rice paste in which some fresh black fungus 

 particles had been placed, in order to ascertain if they could 

 be made to grow artificially." 



It will be observed that the mould referred to as having 

 developed under these varying conditions was identified as 

 one and the same kind of fungus — a fact which, per se, 

 contains a sufficient refutation of the whole theory ; for it is 

 a physical impossibility that spores of fungi which had been 

 preserved in spirits should retain their vitality, consequently 

 the mould which grew on the spirit-preserved specimen must 

 have been of extraneous origin ; not only must it have germi- 

 nated after the evaporation of the alcohol, but it must have 

 originated from some source other than the interstices of the 

 macerated tissue. We are, therefore, compelled to infer that 

 the red mould, of various shades, described as having spread 

 over portions of these three and other Madura-foot specimens, 

 was but some developmental form of our ordinary pink-tinted 

 moulds — bearing no relation whatever to the black, yellow, 

 or orange-coloured particles frequently found in diseased 

 tissues of this nature — no closer relationship, in fact, than a 

 crop of various tinted mould on the surface of rice paste does 

 to any coloured particles which may chance to be in its 

 substance. 



No mould with which we are acquainted, however, presents 

 the slightest resemblance to the pink-coloured objects figured 

 in the plate, purporting to represent " the structure of the 

 red mould found in connection with Mycetoma [Chionyphe 

 Carteri) " — figures, by the way, differing materially from 

 those appended to the original text in the ' Bombay Tran- 

 sactions,' or any others which we have seen elsewhere, and 

 which, we presume, must be considered as representing 

 the Chionyphe Carteri more accurately than the early figures. 

 So long as the forms here delineated are associated in the 

 mind with the idea of moulds, one is certainly puzzled to 

 account for their presence ; fortunately, however, a sentence 



