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introduced into the body in respiration, could easily be 

 detected. The minutest of all known living beings is 

 the Vibrio lineola. of Miiller, measuring only the 36,000th 

 part of an inch, and the smallest known vegetable spore is 

 very much larger than this ; while particles of inorganic 

 matter can be distinguished by the microscope so minute 

 as the 200,000th part of an inch. Be the origin of these 

 diseases however what it may, it is, a matter of fact that 

 when cholera last appeared in this country in 1847, an 

 extraordinary quantity of these microscopic spores were 

 found in the air. If they were poisonous, as many of 

 the fungi are, it admits of being suggested at least that 

 those living in places where dense clouds of them were 

 present, being devitalized by other noxious influences, 

 such as vitiated air, defective sewerage, bad water, or an 

 inadequate supply of food, and consequently in a state of 

 body unable to resist the deleterious action of these 

 cryptogamic germs, died from a form of poisoning. These 

 countless myriads, then, of invisible seeds which continu- 

 ally float in our atmosphere, ever ready to alight and 

 spring into life, as the advanced heralds of the plague 

 and the pestilence, may well strike us with astonishment 

 if not with awe. Above us, about us, and in us they 

 roam like vigilant spirits, " seeing that all is right with 

 our physical constitution ; but gladly availing themselves 

 of the slightest, flaw to work our destruction." 



Although fungi are in an especial manner capable of 

 universal dissemination, yet we find that in their geo- 

 graphical distribution they are as much restricted as 

 other plants. Some representatives of the class are 

 found in every part of the world, and some particular 



