PART II.] Cultivation-Experiments with the Morbid Products. 373 



filaments of which obscured the surface of the paste with the other fungal elements 

 occurring on it. 



Six days after the commencement of the cultivation, this loose overgrowth was 

 cleared off and a luxuriant crop of Aspergillus was exposed to view. This consisted 

 of two species of the above mentioned genus — the first, the common yellow Aspergillus ; 

 the second, another species, of very frequent occurrence in Calcutta, in which the heads 

 are of a rich brown colour and the spores of very minute size. The latter arise from 

 sterigmata, which are not, as in the yellow species, inserted directly on the globose 

 extremity of the fertile filament, but are arranged in fours on the broad extremities of 

 large cuneiform processes intervening between them and the latter. A dense felt of 

 mycelial filaments and fallen spores covered the surface of the paste, and on carefully 

 removing this the black particles were found apparently entirely unaltered. 



Immediately around some of them the substance of the paste was of a brownish 

 orange hue, but no peculiar organisms could be found in such places, and there was no 

 evidence of germination or growth of any kind from the black matter. This staining 

 may have been due to a certain amount of solution of the colouring matter of the 

 particles ; but even this is very doubtful, as similar staining was frequently observed 

 in cultivations of pure rice-paste to which no black particles had been added. The felt of 

 mycelium having being removed as thoroughly as possible, the specimen was again set 

 aside. It soon became covered anew with yellow and brown Aspergilli, together with a 

 smaller regrowth of Mucor, whilst patches of Penicillium glaucum also began to make 

 their appearance here and there. 



Subsequently one or two patches of dull reddish discoloration appeared, consisting 

 of a granular basis through which colourless mycelial filaments ramified, but they were 

 of the same nature as those which occurred in other instances on pure rice-paste and 

 showed no signs of being in any way organically connected with the black particles. The 

 cultivation was kept under observation for three weeks, and at the close of that time was 

 almost entirely covered with a dense layer of PenicilliuTYi glaucum with a small quantity 

 of Mucor still occurring here and there. The black particles showed all their characteristic 

 features under microscopical examination, and afforded no evidences of any attempts 

 at germination nor any signs of vitality on the part of the fungoid elements present 

 in them. 



Cultivation II. — Contemporaneously with the above cultivation another was carried 

 out in which a portion of the same rice-paste was set beneath a separate bell glass without 

 the addition of any foreign matter. 



This also became rapidly covered with a crop of Mucor ; ripe fructification however 

 not appearing quite so rapidly as in the previous case. The substance of the paste 

 forty-eight hours after the commencement of the experiment was everywhere discoloured 

 by dull green patches, whilst here and there minute points of brilliant carmine-pink were 

 present. The latter were carefully examined with the following results. The masses 

 of pink matter were mainly composed of a gelatinous basis full of minute particles. 



