202 VEGETABLE PARASITES. 



more than a mould-fungus ejected from the living human body, 

 but still adhering to the living filaments, and occurring on parts 

 of the organism (epithelium) ; its elements never penetrating the 

 real life-texture. 



Berg very justly remarks that^ properly speaking, there are no 

 good or malignant fungi, but only a lesser or higher degree of 

 the causal process of disease, in the course of which they become 

 manifest, and that the symptoms which precede the outbreak of 

 the fungi belong to diseases which cause a general disturbance 

 of health, and facilitate at the same time the sowing of the 

 fungi. These fungi may, therefore, be accessory to a great 

 many different and serious diseases of children and grown-up 

 people. 



Effects of the Parasite on Man (Reubold}. The fungus being 

 merely a symptom of a disease of the mucous membrane, as stated, 

 does not deserve, according to Robin and Reubold, to be placed 

 among the formations noxious to man, and deserves mention only 

 on account of the increased difficulty experienced in swallowing 

 and sucking by its accumulation, preventing, by means of obtura- 

 tion of the oesophagus, the passage of the food, and generating 

 a considerable amount of acid by facilitating decomposition. 

 Otlier symptoms which accompany it, such as diarrhoea, more 

 rarely vomiting, erythema of the skin, and the saturated fever- 

 nrine, are not attributable to the thrush but to the catarrh. The 

 fungus is, however, not quite so despicable as to be estimated in 

 its effect merely as a furred tongue (Bednar), proof of which is 

 found in the enormous masses of fungi which almost stop up the 

 03sophagus. Its occurrence on the ligaments of the glottis may 

 render it very dangerous, by stopping up the glottis and pro- 

 ducing spasm or inflammation, and oedema of that organ. Reu- 

 bold thinks that the ulcerations and erosions underneath the 

 thrush-fungus ought to be accounted for by catarrh more than 

 by the fungus, although the latter is able to change erosions 

 into ulcerations, if it be correctly stated that it penetrates the 

 mucous membrane. The frequent occurrence of thrush in dys- 

 pepsia is explained by Reubold and Rinecker by the fact that the 

 fungus acts like a ferment on the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach, thus causing, in a very short time, its softening, 

 and even death may occur. Berg mentions, among its effects, 

 the following : sometimes as precursors of an eruption of 

 thrush : inflammation, pain, and heat of the mucous membrane 



