206 BOVINE PATHOLOGY. 



Yegetable Parasitic Organisms are either fungi or closely 

 allied to them, consequently they are not, as are our ordi- 

 nary plants, dependent on the surrounding air for much nu- 

 triment, but they are adapted for the appropriation of all 

 their nutritive material from the soil in which they are grow- 

 ing. When this is rich they grow with the greatest rapidity 

 and luxuriance, thus the ringworm plant attains a high de- 

 velopment on the ox. They consist of tubes and spores pro- 

 duced by them. The former appropriate the nutritive 

 material, the latter become free, and, being very minute, 

 can be conveyed by contagion, immediate or mediate, or 

 wafted through the air. They are also endowed with high 

 resisting power. The larger and more conspicuous of these 

 fungi grow on the surface of the body of the host, causing 

 disorders due to irritation, varying in intensity with the 

 activity of growth of the cause. Those more minute and 

 infinitely more important fungi, which develop internally, 

 acting as Entophyta, are known under the name Bacteria. 

 We have already dealt with them at length in our descrip- 

 tion of " Blood diseases.^^ We are aware of some agents 

 which eradicate those organisms which flourish on the 

 surface ; such have been suggested for the treatment of 

 ringworm. Anti-bacterian agents are by no means so 

 well known. Our main efforts in the management of 

 vegetable, as of animal parasites, must be directed to 

 prevention of contagion and development, and to rendering 

 the system an unsuitable soil, or sufficiently strong to 

 resist their attack and throw them off. 



It will be remarked how gradual the transition is from 

 parasitic disorders to those specific blood affections which 

 have not been proved to be parasitic. Eheumatism and 

 some other diseases serve to connect these latter with 

 ordinary diseases, which, in themselves, are simply modi- 

 fications of physiological conditions. Physiological action 

 of parts depends upon the vitality of cells, and these are 

 in their most generalised forms exactly similar to low 

 non-parasitic organisms, which in their turn do not differ 

 essentially from parasites. Thus, pathology, physiology, 

 and biology form a grand cycle. 



