EFFECTS OF FUNGI. 85 



sloughs in the intestines, and the dry rot of the extremi- 

 ties. We can scarcely resist the conclusion that this last 

 effect is the consequence of the absorption and vital ac- 

 tion of the fungous spores in the parts thus destroyed. 

 Vegetables furnish us with many analogies. The diseases 

 to which fruits and bulbous and tuberous roots are liable, 

 are often the effect of absorbed fungi. Thus, in the mi- 

 croscopic journal, we learn, that Arthur Hill Hassall 

 caused decay at will, in sound fruit, by inoculating it with 

 the spawn of fungi from rotten specimens. The mere bruis- 

 ing of fruit would not cause decay, unless fungi or their 

 spores were present. So, the dry gangrene of the potato, 

 so fatal of late to that esculent in Germany, and since, in 

 Great Britain and Ireland, is produced by the absorption 

 and destructive reproduction of fungous germs in its very 

 substance.* The analogy seems complete ; for, in both 

 sets of cases, fungi produce the disease, and in both, a 

 destruction of the life of remote parts is the consequence. 

 In the potato and apple, the result is demonstratively 

 caused by fungi. In the animal, may we not safely infer 

 it, especially as several instances are recorded, where the 

 putrid matter, conveyed to puerperal women by the hand 

 of the surgeon-accoucheur, has appeared to produce gan- 

 grenous phlebitis ; just as was similarly excited, a gan- 

 grene of the fruit and the root.f 



Even to my own mind, gentlemen, arises the objection, 

 that most of my analogies result from cases in which the 

 poisonous articles were taken into the stomach, and that 

 too, in large doses, such as could not be received into the 



* Ann. des Sci. Nat., Sep. 1842. M. De Martius. 



|ln Simon's Chemistry, published since the first delivery of these lec- 

 tures, we are told that Scherer obtained in the abdominal cavity of one 

 who died of metroperitonitis, organisms resembling minute algae. 



8 



