PART III.] Vegetable Organisms found in Blood. 563 



In 1872, M. Arloing submitted an account of the result of his investigations as 

 to the real nature of the Microzyma sanguinis, and showed pretty conclusively that 

 no such thing as proliferation of these bodies occurred ; that whereas proliferation 

 required some time, these could be produced instantaneously under certain conditions 

 by treating the blood with alcohol, and that consequently the supposed organisms were 

 the result of simple chemical action ; — the explanation being that the hsemato-globuline, 

 having been removed from the blood-corpuscles by the action of water, was subsequently 

 precipitated by the action of alcohol. The addition of tannin to a mixture of blood 

 and lukewarm water produced a similar result. The stellate appearance presented by 

 some of the masses, described as organisms in process of formation, was due to granules 

 adherent to the remains of blood-corpuscles. 



Six or seven years ago a considerable stir was created in the medical circles of 

 Vienna by the announcement that characteristic molecular bodies had been discovered 

 in the blood of syphilitic patients by Lostorfer, and that these were so constantly present 

 as to be diagnostic of the disease.* After some months of discussion in various learned 

 societies as to whether these "syphilis-corpuscles" were fungi-micrococci (for these also 

 during "cultivations" arranged themselves into threads), oil globules, or the remains 

 of degenerated white corpuscles, Biesiadecki announced, as the result of numerous 

 experiments, that the bodies in question were precipitated particles of paraglobulin. 



I.— THE ORGANISMS OF A VEGETABLE NATURE WHICH HAVE BEEN FOUND IN 



THE BLOOD. 



Before entering on a minute description of the microscopic organisms found in the 

 blood which are more allied to plants than to animals, it will be advantageous to con- 

 sider to what special subdivisions of the vegetable kingdom these bodies seem to belong. 

 No small amount of confusion has arisen from want of a clear knowledge of this point, 

 especially on the part of strictly medical writers who have discussed the subject of the 

 connection of disease with vegetable parasites. Nageli, in his remarkably suggestive 

 work,| recently published, has placed this matter in a very clear light, and, being an 

 authority of the first rank, especially on the botanical phase of the subject which forms 

 the text of this paper, his statements on this particular point are worthy of exceptional 

 attention. The forms of plant-life which have been recognised as having been more 

 or less closely associated with changes in living animal substances are the lower kinds 

 of fungi. These, Nageli separates into three groups; (1) Moulds^ characterised by 



* Strieker's Medicinlxche Jahriuoher, Heft 1, 1872. 



t Bie Niederen Pilze in ihren Beziehungen zu den Infeetionshrankheiten vnd der Gemndheitipjfegt', 

 Munchen, 1877. 



