190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



uneasiness had been felt in the abdomen ; unaccompanied, however, by 

 any evidence of inflammation. The substance passed had so much the 

 appearance of shreds of false membrane as to be easily mistaken for 

 them. They were of a buff colour and varied in consistence, some 

 portions being loose and rather flocculent, with a villous surface ; others 

 smooth, shining, and membranaceous. They had a peculiar elasticity, 

 and the membraneous portion when torn had a clear edge. These lat- 

 ter also presented a fibrous appearance to the naked eye, the fibres 

 crossing at right- angles. When portions of this substance were exa- 

 mined under the microscope with a power of from 50 to 100 linear, 

 they were seen to consist entirely of extremely delicate filaments, ap- 

 pearing like a mass of conferva. The looser portions had the usual 

 tangled appearance of a mass of conferva, but in the more membranous 

 flakes the cross-arrangement of the filaments was very evident. Ex- 

 amined with a power of from 300 to 500 linear, the filaments appeared 

 of a pale green colour, and most of them exhibited the cross lines 

 which mark their division into cells, as in Oscillatoria and other allied 

 genera. The filaments were of nearly uniform size, measuring the 

 1 0*0 O th of an inch in diameter, but of indefinite length. At their ex- 

 tremities many terminated abruptly being evidently broken across at a 

 joint. Others were attenuated, being apparently the growing ends, 

 while others had an appearance of branching dichotomously, which 

 circumstance was to be explained, either by supposing that the fila- 

 ments split longitudinally as well as transversly, which many of them 

 had an appearance of doing, or else which is probably the true expla- 

 nation, that the branches were overlying and united in part, while the 

 extremities remained free. This union of the filaments in portions of 

 their length was so firm in most instances as to resist separation when 

 the parts were put upon the stretch. It was probably of the same 

 nature as the union which takes place in Zygnema, but the filaments 

 were too delicate to afford an opportunity of ascertaining the precise 

 mode in which it is effected. It was observed very frequently to occur 

 among the filaments, and gave to many of them the appearance of a 

 dichotomous termination. The author was inclined to refer this singu- 

 lar production to the genus Oscillatoria, of which it appears to consti- 

 tute a new species ; but further investigation may show it to belong to 

 a new genus. There was nothing in the history of the case to show 

 the source from which it had been derived. The patient drank of the 

 ordinary water which supplies London ; but supposing the reproductive 

 sporules to have been thus imbibed, they may have become so far 

 altered in character during growth, deriving their supplies from an or- 

 ganized surface and thus becoming converted into an animalized mate- 

 rial, as to exhibit a new and unknown appearance. The author con- 

 cluded by referring to parallel instances of growths from various parts 

 of the bodies of man and animals as discovered by modern microscopic 

 investigations, but considered the fact now communicated as in itself 

 new to science. 



