THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



their general resemblance to the gelatinous bodies of 

 the Foraminifera, or shell-forming Rhizopods. Other 

 gelatinous, formless masses, the Myzomycetes, are 

 considered to be Fungi, because their slimy substance 

 passes into another life stage, becomes fixed, and pro- 

 duce sporophores, with cell formation. In the one 

 stage they might be rightly called animals, and have 

 often been so classed. In the second or germ-bearing 

 stage they more resemble plants. 



A widely spread family of the lowest forms of 

 vegetable organism, or of Haeckle's Monera, visible 

 only under the microscope, are those known as Bac- 

 teria, Bacilli, Microbes, etc. Their influence on the 

 higher forms of life, both animal and vegetable, for 

 good and for evil is becoming daily more manifest. 

 To the presence of some of them are due the frightful 

 pestilences that have scourged mankind. They are 

 the cause of many of the specific contagious and 

 epidemic sicknesses that afflict us; of Anthrax in 

 flocks, cattle and man ; of typhoid, of typhus, and of 

 other fevers. It is more than probable that consump- 

 tion, pneumonia in its typhoid form, in fact, most 

 diseases not arising from organic lesions, non-assimi- 

 lation, or functional defects, owe their origin and con- 

 tinued existence to these foreign growths in the animal 

 economy, or to the morbific changes their presence 

 induces. In surgery, the precautions taken to destroy 



