Miscellaneous. 8387 
varieties, produced by the difference of the medium in which they 
_ grow, I undertook a series of experiments in cultivating my auricular 
fungi in different media. The lemon and the sweet orange proved 
to be especially favourable for these experiments. The result of 
these experiments, which were frequently repeated and modified, 
was very distinct and constant. Every time that I transplanted 
A. flavescens or nigricans from their animal soil to a vegetable one 
(a slice of lemon or orange), they infallibly returned to the same 
form of vegetable mould, namely 4. glaueus (Link). Every dis- 
tinctive character between 4. flavescens and A. nigricans disappeared 
in consequence of their transmutation into 4. glaucus, of which they 
are consequently only varieties, caused by the difference of the 
medium (animal or vegetable) in which they grow. Whena slice of 
lemon or orange is sown with 4. flavescens or A. nigricans ..... 
in 48 hours the surface of the slice is already covered with a 
layer of sterile filaments of mycelium, which are fine and white and 
like those of a spider’s web. In three days this white layer of 
mycelium is covered with an innumerable quantity of spores. We 
may then detect, by means of the microscope, the presence of spe- 
cimens of an Aspergillus the sporanges and free spores of which are 
distinctly of a brownish-green colour (4. glaucus, Link). | 
(After some remarks on the treatment of these fungi when 
growing in the human ear, from which it appears that the best 
agents for their destruction are hypochlorite of lime and arsenite 
of potash even in very dilute solutions, the author proceeds as 
follows :—) 
The Aspergillus when vegetating in the ear of the human subject 
produces a very characteristic disease, which I have named Myco- 
myringitis or Myringomycosis aspergillina. It presents two forms, 
according as it is occasioned by Ad. flavescens or A. nigricans. The 
latter produces more serious morbid phenomena than the former. 
I should state that hitherto I have never seen 4. flavescens and A. 
nigricans vegetating simultaneously in the same ear, nor could I 
discover the least trace of a mixture of Penicillium glaucum (Link) 
with the Aspergillus, although this mixture occurs ordinarily in the 
moulds which cover vegetable substances. Having learnt that 
Troeltsch of Wiirzburg had recently found in the auditory meatus of 
a patient a mould formed by an Aspergillus penicellatus, I went to 
the spot to examine the microscopic preparations of the parasite, 
and found that they only presented a mixture of Ascophora 
elegans and A. mucedo. 
I have had an opportunity of ascertaining as a matter of fact how 
injurious the moulds growing in rooms are to man. In a case 
studied by me, I was astonished at the unusual obstinacy with which 
the vegetations of 4. nigricans were renewed for three mouths in the 
patient, notwithstanding the employment of the best parasiticides. 
Being unable to explain this extraordinary circumstance except by 
continual infection, I went to the hospital where the woman was a 
superintendent. I found that in three rooms, in which thirty-four 
