Guinea-Worm Embryos into the Human Body. 445 
about by means of their polymorphic moto-plastic cell when on 
wet surfaces (under the form of dmebe). Now Mucor, Achlya, 
Pythium, and the Myxogastres all being allied to cach other by 
this mode of propagation (that is, by minute amcebous or moto- 
plastic cells), we are not wanting in Fungi which produce em- 
bryonal forms that, if any of them chose to enter the human 
body, have the power, under the condition and circumstances 
above mentioned, to do so as easily through the sudorific ducts 
(or even directly, through the skin itself, for they have wonderful 
penetrating power) as an embryonal Filaria. 
I would also add my opinion that the black fungus of the 
human body is a monster-form—from its sporangia, or large 
cells apparently identical with sporangia, never, to my know- 
ledge, containing anything but an amorphous albuminous mass 
(abortive state of sporidia, which is chiefly the seat of the black 
colouring-matter, and ultimately becomes resinous or fatty ?),— 
and thus that this fungus is no more capable of putting forth a 
true embryo which can propagate the species from one human 
body to another, or even out of the body, than the Guinea-worm ; 
and that the natural habitat of the species is therefore, like that 
of the Guinea-worm, out of the body.* 
It may, perhaps, be asked how I come to place Mucor stolo- 
nifer among the fungi which are propagated by polymorphic 
zoospores. My reply is, that I have met with a case in which 
* Ttake from my “ Note-book” the following short description of this 
fungus, which on a late occasion (28th September 1861) I examined half 
an hour after the amputation of the foot in which it was situated, with my 
namesake, who has the merit of having first poited out its real nature in 
the Article to which I have above alluded, and to which I would direct 
attention for a more elaborate account of the disease, &c. :— 
Foot.— Greatly enlarged, presenting several small cloacal orifices connected 
with branched sinuses originating around globular, black or dark-brown 
masses, ranging in size from microscopic minuteness to upwards of half 
an inch in diameter, situated in the bones and deep soft parts of the foot 
and ankle. 
Black masses.—Globular, presenting a cauliflower surface, and breaking 
up with a like structure radiating from the centre ; composed of short, 
irregular filaments of concatenated unequal-sized cells, bearing on their 
sides and ends larger ones (abortive spores ?), which at first are pear-shaped, 
but afterwards become globular, filled with a homogeneous (albuminous ?) 
substance coloured brown, which, swelling out the cell, appears to burst it, 
and, thus becoming free, affords the principal part of the colouring-matter 
and substance of the mass. 
Iodine gives a deep claret-colour to the contents of the large cells 
(spores ?), indicative of their amylaceous nature, and a deep sherry- or 
amber-colour to the rest of the structure, among which I observed starch- 
grains that appeared to me to belong to the fungus. 
The best portions for illustrating this structure are the smallest and 
least coloured, not those which come from the large dark masses, for they 
seldom present much beyond homogeneity and colour. 
