ON THE SO-CALLED CHIGNON FUNGUS. 191 
bee„ ^) ^ iether ^ C]iignon hair ^ ^ 
co bur had thus b een imparted to the plant, I cannot say. We ca/only add, 
Hat tins parasite did not have the quaternary division ; and we onh/saw a 
ternary one, at the time of examination. This second form of parasitism re- 
sembled, both m form and in the colouring imparted by phyto-chromatic pig- 
2* ill F l° t0COCCWS ^riamomens, Kfitz. Tab. Phyc. i. tab. 5, or perhaps more 
I 7 oo Ca J , er Stag6S ° f develo P m ent of P. gloocarpa, especially that figured on 
piace £Z of the first volume. 
"It remains to be seen whether we shall succeed in developing this parasite 
oy winch alone an exact determination becomes possible. With the alter- 
nating generation of the lower types of the vegetable kingdom before us, the 
question is, whether we have not here a mere, perhaps intercurrent, perhaps 
even multiple, stage of development of a parasite belonging to a very different 
atural Order of plants ; or whether not all, or at all events many Palmellea, 
1KB the CyshcercecB, are lower stages of development of other known plants. 
V\ e medical men are chiefly interested in the question, Are these vege- 
able parasites injurious to the human head ? The question can be solved only 
7 experiment. Dr. Rabenhorst informs me that on the hair of a mammal, 
preserved at the Halle Museum, a parasite similar to that of the Chignon lias 
n detected. But this does not solve the question, whether the parasite would 
a so grow on the living hair of man and beast. The parasite at the Halle 
useum may have developed on the dead skin, and we must watch and see 
* lether our parasite, the growth erf which is stimulated by moist atmosphere 
created by the wetting of the hair with hair- wash (honey and water, etc.), 
and the warmth of the head, will translate itself from the false to the living 
. At present we must regard it as a Saprophyte, L e. a parasite vegetating 
° n C ead matter, and distinguished from a Zoophyte, /. e. a parasite vegetating 
on hvmg substances, to which, of course, the hair of living human beings 
ongs. Eut it should be borne in mind that there are parasites which exist 
111 th wa ys,— for instance, Botrytis Bassiana, the fungus of the silkworm ; 
it does not follow that the Chignon plant which to-day we must regard as a 
a Prophyte may not one day appear as a fast-growing Zoophyte." 
Amongst those to whom Messrs. Hovenden had shown the hair 
rejected by their workmen, was Dr. Tilbury Fox. On the last Wed- 
nesday in February I called on that o-entleman, and freelv communicated 
HOi what I had discovered, viz. that the parasite was not of animal 
but of vegetable nature. On the 2nd of March there appeared in the 
'Lancet,' p. 292, the following letter:— 
r j 1 beg to send you some specimens of a fungus I have found in large 
" lf y on and in connexion with change of structure in false hair, with 
ch I have been acquainted for some time. I should think it is the same as 
. e Zoo Oloea capillori'n described a few years ago by Dr. Aloys Martin. It 
DeI °ngs to the Tinea class of fungi. 
|f " Yours obediently, 
&*ckville Street, Fehruary 21th, 1867. " ' ilbuby Fox." 
F 2 
