Dec. 21, 1 886] 



NA TURE 



171 



to what in an account of many businesses would be " dry 

 detail," avoiding all anecdote, either biographical or opera- 

 tive, in illustration of work done, it is still a most inter- 

 esting little book to all who have seen the Ordnance sur- 

 veyors and their assistants about the town or country, or 

 even their mark upon the stone, brick, or other permanent 

 material. Few indeed will there be who will not find 

 their own special taste ministered to either in the account 

 of the measurement of a base-line with its verification by 

 astronomical observation, by trigonometrical calculation, 

 and by exact chain measurement of a known proportion 

 of it, with the record of frequent triumphs of marvellous 

 correctness ; or, again, in the exactness required and gained 

 in the standard measure, with the careful comparison of the 

 English measure with the corresponding foreign standards 

 by which to unite our observed measurements with those of 

 other countries. Such histories give confidence in the trust- 

 worthiness of the maps when published, to the surveyor, 

 and hence to both buyer and seller of land. Distant, we 

 hope, is the time when they will be of value to military 

 commanders for choosing ground and availing them- 

 selves of the various features of the country, so well 

 laid down that a practised eye like that of Prof. 

 J. Geikie can detect different geological formations by 

 the shading of the hills ! Still, this military value is 

 an argument for the frequent revision of maps in 

 which even trees are marked doun that would form an 

 important item in strategical movements. We must 

 sympathise in the hope strongly expressed here that the 

 present accomplished staff may be permanently kept 

 together in periodical revision of these maps. Their 

 value after a space of time to the scientific geologist 

 wishing to compute rates of denudation or deposition is 

 invaluable ; while a much more potent argument to this 

 generation probably is that much of the whole surface of 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire has been changed by the hand 

 of man during the forty years which have now elapsed 

 since that district was surveyed, and perhaps the environs 

 of London still more completely during the twelve to 

 twenty-one years since the maps of them were published. 

 Certainly no one who reads the numerous labours to 

 which they have turned their hands, some of them seem- 

 ing little connected with their regular work, can have 

 any fear of idleness on the part of the staff of this 

 department. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\The Editor Joes not hold himself respoiisiblefor opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 

 return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 

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[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

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 of communications containing interesting and novel facts. ] 



The Cambridge Cholera Fungus 

 In No. 247, vol. xli. of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 

 just published, there is a preliminary report on the pathology of 

 cholera asiatica, by Messrs. C. Roy, J. Graham Brown, and 

 C. S. Sherrington, in which these gentlemen describe .".nd 

 figure the occurrence, in the tissue of the intestinal mucous 

 membrane of persons dead of cholera asiatica, of hyphae or 

 mycelial threads and ''granules." Messrs. Vines and Gardiner 

 have, we are told, declared these to be Chitridiacise. We are 

 further informed that the-e ChitridiaciEe were found by Messrs. 

 Roy, Brown, and Sherrington in the intestinal mucous mem- 

 brane of the twenty-five cases of cholera they have examined, as 

 also in the kidney, and in the blood-vessels of some of these 

 cases. 



I have no hesitation in saying that I consider these statements 

 are based on error. What these gentlemen have seen and 

 described is nothing [less or more than the hyphse or mycelial 



threads of common mould (probably aspergillus), which, during 

 preserving of the material, have grown from the free surface into 

 the tissues. I possess a large number of specimens made of the 

 diseased intestine, lung, kidney, liver, and skin of various 

 animals and men, in no way connected with cholera asiatica ; in 

 many of them I find the exact appearances described and 

 figured by these gentlemen, viz. mycelial threads of pi-ecisely 

 the same size and appearance as those above menlionech They 

 are ,=een to penetrate from the surface, where they form a copious 

 dense mycelium, into the depth to various degrees. I possess 

 section; through the mucous membrane of the intestine of the 

 calf, of the mouse, of the guinea-pig, and of man, in which 

 these hyphre have penetrated as deep as the submucous 

 tissue ; in the lymphatics of this part they were very abundant. 

 Similarly, I have specimens of the lung of calf, cow, and 

 guinea-pig, where the growth of the mycelial threads can be 

 traced from the pleural surface into the lung-tissue ; in the lymph- 

 vessels of the intertubular sepia they are very numerous, and 

 possessed of those knob-shaped outgrowths figured and described 

 by Messrs. Roy, Brown, and Sherrington. I have also speci- 

 mens of the ulcerated skin of calf and cow, where these hyphic 

 can be traced as deep as the subcutaneous tissue. Into the 

 kidney and the mesenteric lymph-glands they also penetrate, 

 but less than in the above organs, probably owing to the greater 

 density of the tissue. 



Now, in all these instances, these tissues had been preserved 

 (luring and over the summer months ; they were examined after 

 three or more months' preservation, and the sections were stained 

 in methylene-blue. But I must state, also, that the same tissues 

 had been examined fresh, and after a few weeks' hardening, and 

 in none of them had any mycelial growth been present. It is a 

 fact, as is pointed out by Roy, Brown, and Sherrington, that 

 methylene-blue brings the threads out more easily and better than 

 other aniline dyes. 



There can be absolutely no doubt about the identity of the 

 Cambridge " Chitridiacefe " with the hyphce of the common 

 mould found in the sections of my non-choleraic specimens. 

 What Messrs. Roy, Brown, and Sherrington describe as 

 "granules," connected by delicate filaments, are, in most in- 

 stances, filaments and branches seen in optical or real transverse 

 section ; with careful fine adjustment of the microscope this- 

 can be without difficulty ascertained. 



Messrs. Roy, Brown, and Sherrington assume that their 

 Chilridiacese have been overlooked by others who have ex- 

 amined cholera intestines, because methylene-blue had not been 

 used. This assumption is entirely wrong, because methylene- 

 blue, as Loffler's (or alkaline) solution and in other modifica- 

 tions, had been used by many investigators. While in India, I 

 largely used it for the staining of sections, fresh, and after 

 a few days' to a few weeks' hardening, and I know, as a 

 positive fact, that the German Commission have, in Egypt, 

 in India, and after their return to Berlin, largely used this 

 dye. But in not one single case have they or have I found 

 anything of mycelial threads either in the intestinal mucous 

 membrane or in any other oi'gan. The only difference between 

 Messrs. Roy, Brown, and Sherrington on the one hand, and 

 all other investigators on the other, is this, that while the former 

 kept their material bottled for some months (vide their report, 

 p. 1 77 J, the latter examined theirs fresh or after short and careful 

 hardening. That this is the real explanation of the difference of 

 our results is proved by the following : — A bottle containing bits 

 of choleraic intestine preserved by me in Calcutta, and brought 

 over to England, was opened many months after ; sections were 

 made of the intestine, and stained in methylene-blue. On the 

 free surface of the mucous membrane was found a dense plexus 

 of mycelial threads of common mould, from which threads (>f 

 various thickness had singly grown into the tissue to the depth 

 of the submucous tissue. 



Of the same choleraic intestine numerous sections had been 

 made in Calcutta, fresh, and after a few weeks' hardening ; these 

 had been stained in methylene-blue, but in none of them is there 

 any trace of mycelial threads. I have these sections at present 

 in my possession ; and, while they show that there is a complete 

 absence in the mucous membrane of mycelial threads, the others, 

 viz. those made of the same intestine, and after the same 

 method, but after having been kept bottled for some months, 

 i-how beautiful mycelial threads pervading the mucous membrane 

 through all depths. 



These threads, in their course, thickness, mode of branching, 

 in the character of the bud-like sprouts, in short in all their 



