OF THE FUNGI. 37 



the nature of the corpuscles, which penetrate it, or are 

 developed among it." 



For these reasons, the lowest of the vegetable groups, 

 the fungi, are, in the opinion of some naturalists, equally 

 distinct from plants and animals, mere fortuitous develop- 

 ments of vegeto-animal matter, called into varied action 

 by special conditions, or by combinations of heat, light, and 

 moisture, and capable of existing and of being propagated, 

 under circumstances apparently the most contrasted. 



Of all vegetable substances the fungi are the most 

 highly animalized. Like animals, they disengage car- 

 bonic acid and imbibe a quantity of oxygen ; nay, some 

 of them extricate hydrogen, and even nitrogen. Their 

 chemical composition also allies them to animal struc- 

 tures. They yield the vegetable products, resin, sugar, 

 gum, fungic acid, and a number of saline compounds; 

 but they also afford the adipocire, albumen, and osma- 

 zome of the animal kingdom. The basis of these plants is 

 fungin, a tasteless but highly nutritious substance, w r hite, 

 soft, and doughy. It yields, by nitric acid, nitrogen, 

 hydrocyanic, oxalic, and some other acids, and fatty sub- 

 stances, like wax, tallow, and, in some instances, oil. 



Of the cryptogamous plants, the fungi are distinguished 

 for their diffusion and number, for their poisonous pro- 

 perties, and their peculiar season of growth, for the mi- 

 nuteness of their spores, and for their love of darkness and 

 tainted soils, and heavy atmospheres. While, then, I shall 

 present their claims to be considered as the principal 

 cause of fevers, I do not mean to exclude the occasional 

 agency of other cryptogamous vegetables ; and beg, when 

 using the convenient word fungus, to be understood as 

 not entirely denying the agencies of cognate beings of 

 4 



