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The Fungus Disease of India. 



[part II. 



It consists of an ordinary glass slide 3" x 1", with a ring of bees' wax (softened 

 by the addition of a little oil) pressed on its surface towards the middle. Intervening 

 between the wax and slide — clamped by it, is a narrow slip of blotting-paper ; and 

 above the wax a thin cover-glass is placed with a drop of fluid containing the spore 

 or germ to be watched. The preparation will now be hermetically sealed except 

 at the spot where the blotting-paper is inserted, the latter serving as an excellent 

 channel for the air and moisture necessary to the perfect growth of the object under 

 cultivation. There is no danger of dust being introduced, and the gases which the 

 nutritive fluid may generate can readily escape. 



A. — Cultivations of the Black material from the second formn of the Madura-Disease. 



The materials employed in these experiments were obtained from various, specimens, 

 and consisted in some instances of portions of the black matter which had been 

 discharged from the tissues previous to the removal of the affected extremities, and 

 which had been preserved by being simply dried. In other cases the material was 

 obtained from specimens which had been preserved for longer or shorter periods in 



Fig. 14. — A growipg-cell adapted for supplying the preparation with moist-air. 



alcohol, glycerine, and other preservative media. The following may serve as examples 

 of such cultivations and of the results obtained from them. 



Cultivation I. — Portions of black matter, discharged from the foot previous to 

 amputation in a case of the disease, and which were subsequently dried, were set in 

 some freshly prepared rice-paste beneath a bell glass. The cultivation was commenced 

 in the month of April. 



Forty-eight hours after it had been set, the cultivation was everywhere covered 

 with a dense crop of Mucor, bearing an abundance of ripe, black sporangia. At various 

 points in the paste, patches of a greenish discoloration had appeared ; and in one place 

 there was a faint indication of a pinkish tint present. As however appearances of a 

 similar nature were also present in a simultaneous cultivation of pure rice-paste, and 

 were there associated with the occurrence of changes and developments precisely similar 

 to those here present, the coloration being moreover much more distinctly marked, a 

 fuller description of them is deferred until the particulars of that cultivation are given. 

 There were, in addition, several patches of young Aspergillus heads of a white colour. 

 Daring the next few days there was a rapid increase in the growth of Mucor, the loose 



