TKICHOPHYTON SPORULOIDES. 151 



along the Vistula, nor did it follow its watercourse, but is 

 reported to have followed the rivers Pruth, Dnieper,, and Niemen ; 

 and, as a general rule, to have shown itself more along the 

 mountain ridges than along the course of rivers. The disease is 

 further stated to have been known to the ancients, and the heads 

 of the Gorgons and of Medusa are said to have been mere 

 mythical representations of this form of disease. The Cimbrians 

 were described by Roman writers as a people with similar medusa 

 heads (that is, infected with plica polonica), and it is generally 

 thought that, at an early period, the degenerated plica polonica 

 " S-ellentost" was found on the shores of the Elbe. Plica 

 polonica is recorded also to have prevailed in the Alps and on the 

 Weser long before it showed itself in Poland; and was found, 

 moreover, in Moravia, Hungary, Carniola, Ceylon, Paris, France, 

 England, and American India, and it appears therefore im- 

 proper to give to this disease the name plica polonica. 



The plica polonica was always believed to exist only on men 

 and animals covered with hair ; Von Studzieniski describes, how- 

 ever, an interesting case of this disease on a pair of turtledoves. 

 Von Walther noticed that the blood of persons infected with 

 plica polonica when heated to 30 (?) gives off sometimes a pecu- 

 liar odour of plica, and that the plicous exudation, not merely 

 on the skin of the head, but on the whole body, issues through 

 the skin, so that the perspiration of such sick persons, who are 

 treated according to Priessnitz's method, is said to be milky and 

 smells like plica. Von Walther observes, moreover, that the 

 matter of plica not only blights the living hair, but also the 

 periwigs and other tufts of hair placed on the body at the period 

 of the eruption of the exudation. 



Literature ad I. Malmsten, translated in Muller's ' Archiv/ 

 by Creplin, 1848, p. 1, table I, figs. 1 3 ; Gruby, ' Comptes 

 rendues de Paris/ 1814, xviii, p. 583 ; Cazenave, ' Annales des 

 Maladies de la Peau et de la Syphilis/ 1848; Malherbe, 'Etudes 

 cliniques sur FHerpes tonsurans/ Nantes, 1852, p. 10, with notes of 

 Letenneur ; Letenneur, ( Reflexions sur FHerpes tonsur./ Nantes, 

 1852, p. 17 ; Bazin, ( Recherches sur la nature et traitement des 

 Teignes/ Paris, 1853, p. 68, tab. II, figs. 2 and 4 ; Robin, 10, 

 pp. 408424, tab. II, figs. 79. 



Literature ad Ha. Giinsburg, Miiller's ' Archiv/ 1843, 

 1844, and ' Comptes rendus des Seances de F Academic Royal des 

 Sciences de Paris/ 1843, t. xvii, p. 250; Vogel, 'Allgem. 



