1893.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 153 



marked, which wind around it and which are more or less loaded 

 with granular and sometimes massive gravel, made up of the 

 triple phosphates of ammonia, lime and soda, uric acid, oxalate of 

 lime, cystine and the other gravels which seem to be the same as 

 found in the urine and feces, their normal and natural outlets, and 

 which seem to have been clogged, and the gravel obliged to find 

 exit by the mucous membranesof the respiratory tract. vSometimes 

 these "gravels are in an acicular form, sometimes in narrow rhom- 

 boids, sometimes in broad rhomboids terminated at both ends with 

 one, two, three, and even four sharp points. The presence of 

 these crystalline matters, with needle-points sharper and more ac- 

 curately formed than the point of the finest needle, more or less 

 irritates the circular muscular fibres of the bronchi, and renders 

 them susceptible to spasmodic contraction which closes up the air 

 tubes, already obstructed, and causes difficult breathing and what is 

 known as an attack of asthma. Irritation of the nasal mucous 

 membrane will produce a like but not so complete a contraction 

 of the bronchi. 



It would seem a sufficient explanation of the neurosis called 

 asthma to say that if any outside part of the body were pricked 

 with finest cambric needles twenty times a minute, year in and 

 year out, the part would become so over sensitive — that is, " hy- 

 perjesthetic " — as to cringe at the very approach of said needles, and 

 besides become convulsed with cramp from the involuntary con- 

 traction of the muscles of the part. 



The Spirilina asthma does not add to the ease of expectoration, 

 but adds to the suffering of the patient. The Spirilina asthma 

 is removable. In my own case it seems to have gone of itself, 

 though of course I cannot tell but there are more specimens in my 

 air-passages. I have seen a species of the Oscillarite health- 

 ily growing in the healthy spleen of a frog, and apparently harm- 

 less to the host. 



I have called the attention of Prof P. F. Reinsch, of Erlangen, 

 Germany, to the Spirilina asthma^ but with little satisfaction, as 

 it seems to be nearly unknown in Europe, which gives all its at- 

 tention to the baby vegetations, i. e., bacteria^ and cares but little 

 for the adult forms of the same vegetations. 



As full-grown botanical specimens are of more value for biologi- 

 cal uses than their seeds alone, or as oaks are of much more im- 

 portance than acorns alone, so in the future this Spirilina asth- 

 ma will attract more attention than it now does. For one, I am 

 grateful for the discovery of the Spirilina asthma^ as it gives a 

 better practical, clinical idea of the physical causes of asthma, 

 hitherto deemed a neurosis with invisible causes. 



Postscript. — Extract from a letter of Prof Paulus F. Reinsch, 

 of Erlangen, Germany, to the writer, dated May 4, 1892 : " The 

 specimens of asthmatic sputum you sent over for examination 

 last year I have had in examination, but I could not perceive the 



