NAIL FUNGUS. 229 



less filaments, composed of longish joints, with double contours, 

 frequently exhibiting very fine clear drops at certain distances, 

 together with numerous ramifications, anastomoses, shoots of the 

 root, and sometimes roundish projections. 



b. Very fine, small, simply bordered, numerous spore-grains, 

 with clear contents. Their development was indistinct, on 

 account of the adhering air-vesicles; large quantities of fine 

 spores were frequently observed lying in heaps at the end of a 

 filament, as on a receptaculum, very much like forms of Asper- 

 gillus. Virchow also found germinating spores, that is, spores 

 with fine cylindrical processes near to the larger filaments. 



c. Coarser, broader, dark yellowish-brown, articulated, and 

 ramified filaments, with oval terminal enlargements, but only 

 once in a few examples. 



d. Uncoloured, shortly articulated filaments, with larger 

 spores arranged in rows at their extremities, frequently of a 

 round shape and pretty large size, or with oval and smaller 

 spores, which often extend in one direction, being connected with 

 the next spore by means of a short flatly-ending neck, where 

 they retained their arrangement in rows. They appear almost 

 homogeneous in water or alkalies; iodine imparts to their in- 

 terior a stronger brownish-yellow colour, lighter on the edges ; 

 and on addition of sulphuric acid they exhibit a distinct, dense, 

 colourless, occasionally transient greenish or brownish mem- 

 brane, with brown, granular contents. On treating it with more 

 acid, the outer sac always opened on the spot where the neck 

 was (micropyle ?), allowing the brown contents to flow out. 

 In alcohol they exhibited likewise very distinctly the bottle- 

 shaped neck, which was only adhering to the outer envelope of 

 the spores, whilst their interior showed a contracted granule. 

 Virchow further states that he once found the fungus in the 

 gryphotic toe-nails of a woman who died of purulent empyema; 

 on another occasion in the very thick and short nails of a tuber- 

 culous individual ; and on a third occasion on an old woman, in 

 a case of nail-splitting, when he observed a yellowish-gray, 

 powdery mass, which could be sent flying about in the air by 

 bending back the nail, and allowing it afterwards to return to 

 its former position. The fissures of the nail harboured in all 

 these various cases either spores or mycelium, the part underneath 

 the nails was always very thick, and consisted of loose horny 

 scales, between which the yellow fungous mass, resembling in 



