THE FUNGUS DISEASE OF INDIA:' 



A REPORT OF OBSERVATIOIfS 



BY 



T. E. LEWIS, M.B., and D. D. CUNNINGHAM, M.B. 



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CHAPTER I. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PARASITIC FUNGI GENERALLY. 



The importance of undertaking a series of systematic observations with a view to 

 elucidate the nature of the connection between certain disease-processes and growths 

 of a vegetable character has for a long time been impressed upon us, and we have 

 for several years past kept records of investigations bearing more or less directly 

 on this subject. Hitherto, however, our reports on fungi and allied organisms have 

 referred to the question of the actual presence of any such vegetations, not palpably 

 adventitious, in connection with certain special diseases and particularly with cholera. 

 Having failed to satisfy ourselves of the existence of sufficient evidence to support 

 the doctrine that any such growths are necessarily associated with these particular 

 classes of disease, we decided on ascertaining, if possible, whether in the diseased 

 conditions in which characteristic fungoid growths are knowp to exist beyond dispute, 

 the latter must necessarily be regarded as the actual cause of the particular malady. 

 In undertaking this work we were aware that it was taking a step backward — treading 

 the ladder a step lower down than that on which we commenced our work. We saw 

 no alternative, however, but to do this, as personal observation had taught us that 

 certain fundamental data, which we had originally taken for granted as established, 

 were not entitled to such unreserved reliance. Some of these observations we have 

 now proposed to detail. 



We are desirous that it should be understood that it is not our intention to 

 discuss the purely botanical questions, which, though so intimately associated with 

 phyto-pathological studies, belong, nevertheless, more to the province of the professional 

 botanist than to that of the pathologist : such questions, for example, as the relation 

 existing between fungi and algae. The true character of the vegetations which occupy 



* From the Eleventh Annual Report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. 



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