OF THE FUNGI. 45 



Their volume, or the selective appetency of the mouths 

 of the absorbents and the lacteals, or of the pores of the 

 venous radicles, may offer insuperable impediments to 

 their entrance. The chyle globules are about two-thirds 

 of the size of blood globules in man, and they are sup- 

 posed to be readily absorbed by the lacteals. Fries states 

 that he has seen cryptogamous sporules of the size of 

 TU/00 o^ ns f an inch, which would give them a volume one- 

 third of that of blood globules, and two-thirds only of that 

 of chyle globules. In examining, when mixed together, 

 blood globules and the spori of various minute fungi, I have 

 often seen the latter, in line along the disk of the former, 

 w r hen it required fourteen of them to subtend its long diame- 

 ter. They were, therefore, at least ten times as small as the 

 chyle-globules. So much for size. As to the selective 

 power of the lacteals, we know that they suffer very many 

 and various poisons to pass into the circulation, and that, 

 in this respect, they are much less particular than our 

 fathers imagined. Besides this, we know that fungous 

 growths, both in man and the lower animals, have been 

 found in places, to which their germs could have gained 

 access only by the circulation, or by imbibition. There 

 is, therefore, no good reason for doubting that the spores 

 of fungi find their way to the channels of the circulation, 

 as do the cells of exanthematous diseases, and the virus of 

 syphilis. 



The cause of the uniform excess of malarious diseases at 

 the end of summer and in autumn has been an interesting 

 subject of discussion and wonder. Boot, in his life of 

 Armstrong, observes that, "the most remarkable circum- 

 stance connected with the diseases supposed to arise from 

 malaria, is their general prevalence in autumn, in every 

 country where they occur." Even the yellow fever of places 



