152 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [June, 



matic to be loaded like a gun ready to go off when the trigger is 

 pulled, and that the explosion should be the paroxysm of asthma. It 

 is possible to have the S. asthma without a paroxysm. In my own 

 case it is possible I might have contracted or sowed the plant from 

 studying for so many years specimens which contained Spirilina 

 asthma, especially as my breath directly passes over the specimens 

 on the stage of the microscope. I have been such an enthusiastic 

 admirer of the beauties of the S. asthma that I could not help lin- 

 gering long and delightedly over this American contribution to clini- 

 cal medicine. The modes of propagation are not known, and I may 

 be wrong as to the idea of my catching it through the breath. It 

 is a parasitic plant to be studied, and the object of this paper is to 

 call attention to it, have it better known and its biology better 

 made out for the benefit of a large class of chronic invalids whose 

 sufferings are known, but whose causes of suffering are not known. 



To Collect the Spiralina, — Take some of the morning sputum 

 of old asthmatics, dry on a piece of white writing-paper, away from 

 the stove or sun. A mass one inch in diameter is enough. The 

 specimen will keep thus indefinitely if put in an envelope and 

 stored in a dry place, away from insects or mice. By this mode of 

 mounting asthmatic sputum can be sent in a letter around the 

 earth. For examination this dried specimen is moistened with 

 clear water and soaked until as fluid as when expectorated. Then 

 a small portion of the sputum may be transferred to a slide by 

 means of a wooden toothpick fresh and clean, which catches the 

 slippery mucus, and which I have found to answer best in handling 

 the slimy, sticky, and hard-to-manipulate sputum. Once used 

 they are spoiled, and their extreme cheapness makes it easy to al- 

 ways use a new one. After covering so that the sputum is uni- 

 formly diffused between the slide and cover, the mount should 

 be placed under a one-inch objective and one-inch ocular. This 

 combination brings out the 6". astJnna better than any other 

 power. To save time in clinical w^ork, I use broken slides for cov- 

 ers. I find that more pressure can be exerted, with no danger of 

 fracture, than with the ordinary thin covers. It should be added 

 that my clinical one-quarter-inch Tolles has a working distance of 

 about one-quarter inch. 



The Spirilina asthma shows thus a peculiar lustrous, shining 

 waved spiral or singularly twisted or recurved line, of length 

 varying with the treatment it has had in its travel thr )Ugh the air- 

 passages, and hence to and on the slide. As said before, it looks 

 like a highly polished gold wire i8 carats fine. It is tough as a 

 wire. Dr. Salisbury attributes the peculiar tenacity of asthmatic 

 sputum to its fibre growing in the mucous follicles and offering a 

 physical resistance to the withdrawal of the sputum by the out- 

 ward motions of the cilia of the cylindrical epithelia of the respi- 

 ratory tract. 



It has a peculiar habit of engaging and surrounding itself with 

 tenacious, gelatinous mucus in fibres or strings more or less 



