64 THE FUNGI PREVAIL AT NIGHT 



according to Hecker, stinking and pestilential, moved 

 over the face of devoted England, where, as it went, were 

 scattered the seeds of the sudor anglicanus, by which that 

 kingdom was almost depopulated, and sometimes the peo- 

 ple of the villages were entirely exterminated. Many 

 epidemics, as cholera and plague, select for peculiar resi- 

 dence and ravage, damp, dark, noisome places, where 

 want of light and dryness and ventilation, must especially 

 favor fungiferous processes. The instinctive aversion to 

 mouldiness, as to serpents, seems to be, therefore, not 

 without its utility, and in seeking the elevation in society 

 which gives to man cleanly habits and an airy residence, in- 

 dividuals find a physical exemption from disease and pain 

 even more valuable than the social enjoyments. 



In the history of epizootics, are related a multitude of 

 examples of the production of destructive diseases, appa- 

 rently brought upon cattle and other animals by mould. 



The fatal angina maligna of cattle, a gangrenons dis- 

 ease, which prevailed in 1682, was attended by a blue mist 

 or dew on the herbage of pastures. 



The milzbrand, a gangrenous disease of cattle, not un- 

 usual in France and Germany, is, according to Thomasin, 

 very prevalent in Burgundy and Provence, where it affects 

 the herds chiefly of low and humid districts in summer or 

 autumn after inundations, by which the pasturage is de- 

 teriorated and the fodder moulded and mildewed. The 

 disease thus acquired by cattle, may be conveyed to other 

 animals including man, by ingestion (Chaussier, &c.) or 

 even contact with the skin (Morand, Duhamel, Thomasin), 

 producing in either way symptoms of fever in some persons, 

 and malignant pustules in others. Sometimes a gangrenous 

 fever is the consequence, and at other times only a local 

 gangrene of a very intractable character ensues. That the 



