PARASITIC FUNGI. 



295 



atmosphere is, so to speak, more fully charged with the 

 various spores of fungi than it is at others. The spores of 

 the moulds aspergillus, penicillium, and puccinia are per- 

 haps the most widely distributed bodies, and towards the 

 end of the hot weather, or about autumn time, they are 

 very abundant. Among those who have taken them at this 

 period of the year, we must ever associate the name of the 

 Eev. Lord Godolphin Osborne, who hrst experimented in 

 this direction during the cholera visitation of 1854. He 

 exposed prepared slips of glass, slightly moistened with 

 glycerine, over cesspools, gully -holes, &c., near the dwell- 

 ings of those where the disease appeared, and caught 

 what he termed aerozoa — chiefly minute germs and spores 

 of fungi. A drawing made from one of these glasses 

 (Plate I. JSTo. 13), exhibits spores almost identical with 

 those found on the human skin, &c. 



From the year 1854 to the present time we have amused 

 ourselves by catching these floating atoms, and, so far as 

 we can judge, they are found everywhere, and in and on 

 every conceivable thing, if we only look close enough for 

 them. Even the open mouth is an excellent trap ; of 

 this there is ample evidence, since we find on the delicate 

 membrane lining the mouth of the sucking, crying infant, 

 and on the diphtheritic sore throat of the adult, the de- 

 structive plant Oidiiim albicans. The human or animal 

 stomach is invaded, and in a certain deranged condition we 

 find the Sarcina ventriculi, with its remarkable-looking 

 quaternate spores, its torulo3, &c., seriously interfering with 

 the functions of this organ. ^ Torida diabetica is another 

 of these destructive products found in the human bladder. 



Fig. 158. — Sarcina ventriculi. 



(1) What part do the fungi, or bacteria, play in the production of that fearful 

 scourge of the human race, cancer? is a question not unfrequently asked since 



