THRUSH. 353 



through impairment of the nutrition, the tenderness of the 

 mouth interfering with nursing. In general, however, the 

 disease is a thoroughly benign one. The thrush-vegeta- 

 tions have no especial tendency to extend, and only excep- 

 tionally have extension of the thrush-fungus into the 

 interior of blood-vessels and transmission through emboli 

 been observed. The vegetations can be readily removed 

 by rubbing the thrush-plaques with soft cloths dipped in a 

 solution of borax (sodium biborate 2.0, glycerin 4.0, dis- 

 tilled water 34.0). 



Sources of Infection for Thrush. The thrush -fungus 

 is present in the air of dwelling-rooms, in the feces of in- 

 fants, upon rubber nipples, upon saccharine and amylaceous 

 articles of food, etc., and it may gain entrance into the 

 mouth with all of these. Frequently, as has already been 

 mentioned, the thrush-fungus is found in vaginal mucus, 

 and thrush in the infant has been attributed to conveyance 

 of the fungus from the maternal genital canal during the 

 act of parturition. This is, however, certainly not the 

 ordinary mode of infection, as the period of incubation of 

 thrush, as determined by numerous inoculation-experiments, 

 is only four or five days, and the disease usually does not 

 appear in infants before the second week. 



Culture and Botanic Position of the Thrush-fungus. 

 In accordance with the appearance of the thrush-fungus 

 in the thrush-membrane described, the fungus bears a close 

 resemblance to the varieties of oidia that cause the derma- 

 tomycoses, and it has, therefore, been given the name 

 oidium albicans. Grawitz, then, demonstrated subsequently 

 by culture that the thrush-fungus is not a mold, but rather 

 a budding fungus. As numerous later investigations have 

 shown, the thrush-fungus grows upon culture-media of 

 acid reaction and containing an abundance of sugar (prune- 

 decoction agar) in filaments of actively budding yeast-cells. 

 If these be transferred to ordinary meat-peptone agar thus 

 to an alkaline nutrient medium, deficient in sugar distinct 

 threads develop in addition to the budding cells. Retrans- 

 ferred to an acid medium, the threads again develop almost 

 exclusively into yeast-conidia. The oidium albicans is thus 

 a budding fungus that, under certain nutritive conditions, 

 forms hyphae. Other observers, however, maintain that 

 the thrush-fungus is a mold. The organism does not 

 liquefy gelatin. Upon gelatin-plates whitish colonies form, 

 23 



