268 APPENDIX. 



" Further opportunities of examining this product, supposing it to be 

 allied to or to belong to Oscillatoria, may probably throw some light on 

 the disputed question of the animal or vegetable nature of that genus, 

 which appears to be now one of the many bones of contention between the 

 botanist and the zoologist. Perhaps the chemical analysis of this sub- 

 stance, which I have not yet had an opportunity of instituting, may 

 throw some light upon the question. I have already alluded to the re- 

 semblance in colour and other particulars of this substance to animal 

 matter ; it appears also to be disposed to a similar putrefaction, for on 

 opening the phial this morning, in which the substance was contained in 

 a weak solution of salt and water, I perceived a very distinct odour, 

 similar to that of decomposing animal matter, and I find that these spe- 

 cimens are not now so perfect as when I first examined them. 



" With regard to the source from which these bodies could be derived : 

 since similar organisms are abundant in every water there can be no 

 difficulty in supposing that a portion of the substance itself, or some of its 

 reproductive germs or sporules, may have been swallowed by this indi- 

 vidual in the water which she drinks. I have made particular inquiry as 

 to her diet, and find that it is of the ordinary description, both animal 

 and vegetable ; and that her drink is limited to tea and water, but of the 

 latter she takes very little. The water is supplied by the ordinary 

 service-pipes of the metropolis, and not from any particular well or 

 pump. 



" At this point of the inquiry the same difficulty occurs as in the 

 question of the origin of the ordinary internal parasites of animals, the 

 Entozoa. Whence are they derived, and how is their existence in the 

 body to be explained by reference to an external origin, since they are not 

 found in any other situation ? It would be almost impossible to conceive 

 that the substance which I have described could be found out of an or- 

 ganized body, for example in a stream of water ; but I would suggest, 

 that having derived its supplies of nourishment from an organized body 

 (in this case, as may be presumed, from the surface of the intestine), its 

 characters may have been so far modified, consisting in fact, as it does, of 

 animal matter, as to render the object no longer recognisable as an already 

 existing species. 



" I believe the fact which I have just announced is new to science ; 

 I have not myself met with any similar instance, but it belongs to a class 

 of facts which modern microscopic investigation is rapidly rendering 

 familiar to all who value that species of observation. In the journals of 

 the day may be found numerous examples of parasitic growth from various 

 parts of the bodies of animals, and even of man. From the surface of the 

 body, as in the confervoid growths attached to the fins and gills of fishes, 

 and cryptogamic vegetation constituting the essential part of certain 

 morbid products, as in the porrigo of the human subject. Other ex- 

 amples are recorded of internal vegetations, Entophyta as well as JSntozoa, 

 as from the lungs in birds, and even of the human subject, as recorded by 

 Dr. J. H. Bennett, in a case where such organisms were expectorated by 

 an individual under pulmonary consumption. Mr. Goodsir has related a 

 case in which thousands of animals, allied to the genus Gonium, were 

 vomited from the human stomach ; and to the mass of evidence which is 

 thus rapidly accumulating, of parasitic growths, both animal and vegetable, 



