228 VEGETABLE PAKAS1TES. 



sembling claws, striped with a yellowish-white, or brownish colour, 

 opaque, and which moved in their sockets, having a soft and 

 brittle but not lacerated appearance, and being fissile like wood. 

 These fungi became perceptible, on displaying the ordinary cells 

 of the nail by means of caustic soda, in which they spread freely, 

 often extending beyond the edges of the section. Their mycelium 

 consisted of long, ramified, articulated filaments, with joints of 

 __L_ ^" in breadth, and twice to four times as long; being usually 

 arranged in consecutive layers, and refracting the light of a 

 greenish colour. There were, moreover, sporangia, with broad, 

 short threads or tubes, which were not ramified, indistinctly arti- 

 culated and enlarged, composed of short roundish or square 

 divisions, which contained the spores in the shape of a rosary, 

 with edges of double " contours," and which contained an im- 

 mense number of free spores in the filamental spaces, being 

 TOSO 730"' i n extent, roundish, and greenish in colour. The 

 largest among them exhibited double contours, and a spot (nu- 

 cleus?) in the interior. 



The whole nail-substance of all the fingers, with the exception 

 of the healthy fore-finger of the right hand, was permeated by 

 this fungus, which extended in parallel rays and stripes from 

 the root towards the surface, pushing aside the cells of the nail, 

 and discolouring the latter. The fungus did not, however, occur 

 on other parts of the body. The man stated as the cause of his 

 disfigured nails, that the latter had been crushed some thirty 

 years ago by a heavy load, that they had fallen off, but grown 

 again, and become very thick, but he did not know whether the 

 fore-finger also had been injured. Meissner thinks that the 

 fungus was the cause of the abnormal growth of the man's nails. 

 The fungus is very much like that of Porrigo lupinosa, and is 

 distinguished from the fungus of Pityriasis versicolor (Micro- 

 sporon furfur) by its articulated mycelium, by larger filaments, and 

 spores. 



2. Virchow mentions (1. c.) three more cases of the formation 

 of fungi on the nails of the toes, under the head " Onychomy- 

 cosis." Virchow adopts Meissner's description only generally, 

 and does not know whether all the forms observed by the latter 

 belong to one and the same fungus. Virchow found 



a. A very dense, copious mycelium occurring between the 

 fissures of the texture of the nail and within the circumference 

 of the large masses, which consisted of very fine, entirely colour- 



