NA TURE 



21 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1876 



FUNGUS DISEASE OF INDIA 



Functus Disease of India : a Report of Observations.. 

 F. R. Lewis, M.B., and D. D. Cunningham, M.B. 

 Icutta : Government Printing Office, 1875.) 

 W questions are more perplexing than the relations 

 of fungi to different diseases to which the animal 

 jrld is subject. On the one hand the most exaggerated 

 id ill-founded theories have been put forth, which have 

 nded to cause the most senseless alarm, while on the 

 her hand their agency has been altogether denied, or if 

 all allowed, restricted to subjects already in a depressed 

 ate of health, and therefore as merely availing themselves 

 a fitting nidus for their development. The truth pro- 

 ibly lies between the two extremes, and if the analogy of 

 le vegetable kingdom be allowed to have any weight, it is 

 ifficult, after what we know of the propagation of the 

 otato-murrain by means of zoospores in perfectly 

 ealthy individuals, to deny the possibility of infec- 

 ion without a previous morbid state. The advocates, 

 ideed, of these views, at once cut off all argument 

 the assertion that the potato-plant, by reason of 

 ong propagation by means of tubers, has become 

 ssentially unhealthy, but the same might be asserted 

 if members of the animal kingdom subject to disease, 

 s indeed is the case with that to which silkworms 

 all victims, by reason of inoculation with the spores of 

 3otrytis bassiana. The real point, however, is whether even 

 n unhealthy subjects, fungi merely find a proper nidus for 

 heir growth, or whether they may induce disease in these 

 subjects, and no question in pathology can be conceived 

 )f greater importance. It at least seems quite certain 

 that a gangrenous state of wounds may arise from the 

 iccess of fungoid germs from the air, and that proper 

 Means to prevent their access, or to destroy their vitality, 

 ire effectual. 



The work, therefore, which bears the title given above, 

 is of unusual interest, relating as it does to one of the 

 most formidable maladies to which the human frame is 

 subject, and it demands very patient observation, as the 

 authors have not only paid the greatest attention to 

 questions of the kind, having had a special preparation 

 for such investigations before entering upon their study, 

 but, what is unfortunately of too great rarity amongst 

 persons who have written on such subjects, are tho- 

 roughly acquainted with the nature of that part of the 

 vegetable kingdom which is called in question. 



It is not necessary here to describe the peculiar features 

 of the disease, which would take us far beyond our limits, 

 farther than to state that it appears under three different 

 forms, in one of which black sclerotioid bodies of various 

 sizes, from a grain of sand to a small walnut, excavate 

 hollows in the bones, or are ejected with various sanious 

 matters from the wounds, and it is to this form that the 

 observations have a special relation. In the article in 

 the hitellectual Observer, Nov. 1862, by the writer of this 

 notice, which was founded on observations communicated 

 by Dr. H. J. Carter, it is stated that the figure d, p. 256, 

 represents the natural state of the red fungus, Chionyphe 

 Carteri, springing from particles of the black fungus 

 ■ Vol. XV.— No. 367 



scattered over rice paste. It should seem, however, that 

 there is some doubt about this as our authois deny that the 

 Chionyphe * has ever been raised from the black fungus. 

 It is at least certain that all attempts of our authors to raise 

 it from the Sclerotioid mass have failed, and it is supposed 

 that the Chionyphe was an accidental growth from mace- 

 rated specimens of fragments of either the black or pink 

 form of the disease. It is doubtful whether any great 

 weight can be laid on the pink colour. Nothing is more 

 common in this country than for pink spots to occur on 

 paste or decaying fungi, and these pink gelatinous specks 

 are capable of propagation, as is also the case with the 

 bright blue specks which occur in similar situations, as I 

 have myself proved, and of which I preserve specimens. 

 The so-called blood-rain belongs to the same category. Un- 

 fortunately it has not yet been proved that these bodies arc 

 capable of development into higher forms. The real 

 point is whether these sclerotioid bodies are really of a 

 fungoid nature at all, a point which is worthy of mature 

 consideration. 



And here our authors very properly call attention to 

 the fungoid forms which appear in the myeline of Virchow. 

 The observations are so important that it is well to give 

 them textually :— A development of myeline is especially 

 prone to occur where portions of the fatty matter, roe- 

 like masses, &c., freshly removed from an alcoholic prepa- 

 ration, are subjected to the action of liquor potassse. The 

 multifarious and highly complex forms of tubes, filaments, 

 globules, and cysts, which may frequently be observed to 

 become developed, shooting out and, as it were, growing 

 from the globules and aggregations of fatty matter, are 

 wonderful, and such that they could hardly be believed 

 to owe their origin to any such process or material, were 

 not their development distinctly traceable through all its 

 stages. 



" From the extremely organised nature of their appear- 

 ance they are, as the accompanying figure will show, 

 peculiarly liable to be mistaken for fungal growths, espe- 

 cially by those who are unused to the practical study of 

 such bodies and to the various appearances presented by 

 complex oily bodies, and it is necessary that very great 

 caution should be exercised in the interpretations of such 

 phenomena." 



This is clearly of the utmost importance, and cannot 

 be too thoughtfully considered. The calcospherites of 

 Prof. Harting, the concretions of Mr. Raines, and the 

 curious specimens of dentine exhibited at Norwich, in 

 1868, so similar to cellular tissue as to deceive the most 

 instructed who were not acquainted with their orgin, 

 belong to the same class of bodies. 



We are not surprised, then, after these considerations, 

 the futile attempts to raise the Chionyphe from the 

 Sclerotioid bodies, and the mode of origin of the fungus 

 in other cases, that our authors have arrived at the conclu- 

 sion that the Fungus-foot of India is not due to any 

 fungus growth. 



The roe-like bodies which occur in the pale variety of 

 the disease are shown to be fat in various modified forms ; 

 the pink particles were determined to be pigmented con- 

 cretions, while the black masses consist of degenerated 

 tissues mixed to a greater or less extent with black pig- 



I The genus Chionyphe, it should be observed, does not grow on snow, 

 but on wheat, or other vegetables that have been buried under snow. 



