84 REPORT—1868. 
connexion of animal and vegetable life. Fresh matter is constantly turning up, 
most clearly indicating that there are organisms in the vegetable kingdom which 
cannot be distinguished from animals. ‘The curious observations which showed 
that the protoplasm of the spores of Botrytis infestans (the Potatoe mould) is at 
times differentiated, and ultimately resolved into active flagelliferous zoospores, 
quite undistinguishable from certain Infusoria, have met their parallel in a memoir 
lately published by MM. Famintzin and Boranetzky respecting a similar differen- 
tiation in the gonidia of Lichens belonging to the genera Physcia and Cladonia. 
It is, however, only certain of the gonidia which are so circumstanced ; the contents 
of others simply divide into motionless globules. 
A still more curious fact, if true, is described by De Bary, after Cienkowsky, in 
the division of Fungi known under the name of Myxogastres or false puffballs. 
Their spores, when germinating, in certain cases give rise to a body not distin- 
guishable from Ameba, though in others the more ordinary mode of germination 
prevails. In the first instance De Bary pronounced these productions to belong 
to the animal kingdom, so striking was the resemblance; but in our judgment 
he exercised a wise discretion in comprising them amongst vegetables in a late 
volume of Hofmeister’s ‘ Handbuch.’ 
The point, however, to which I wish to draw your attention, and one of great 
interest if ultimately confirmed, is that the gelatinous mass produced either inde- 
pendently, or by the blending of these Amoeboid bodies, is increased, after the 
manner of true Amcebze, by deriving nourishment from different organisms involved 
by accident from the extension of the pseudopodia. These strange bodies, accord- 
ing to our author, behave themselves precisely after the same manner as those en- 
closed accidentally in undoubted animals. If this be true, it shows a still more 
intimate connexion, or even identity of animals and vegetables than any other fact 
with which I am acquainted. 
You are all doubtless aware of the important part which minute fungi bear in the 
process of fermentation. A very curious contribution to our information on cog- 
nate matters has lately been published by Van Tieghem, in which he shows that 
tannin is conyerted into gallic acid by the agency of the mycelium of a species of 
Aspergillus, to which he has given the name of Aspergillus niger. The paper will 
be found in a late Number of the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturalles,’ and is well 
worth reading. 
We now come to the subject which I mentioned at the beginning of this address, 
viz. the theory of Hallier respecting the origin of certain diseases. His observa- 
tions were at first confined to Asiatic cholera, but he has since made a commu- 
nication to the authorities of the Medical Department of the Privy Council 
Office, to the effect that in six other diseases—typhus, typhoid, and measles (in 
the blood), variola, variola ovina, and vaccinia (in the exanthemes)—he has 
found certain minute particles which he calls micrococci, which under culture-ex- 
periments give, for each of the above-mentioned diseases, a constant and charac- 
teristic fungus. Te states that in variola he gets the hitherto unknown pyenidia 
of Ewrotium herbariorum ; in vaccinia, Aspergilius glaucus, Lk.; in measles, the 
true Mucor mucedo, of Fresenius; in typhus, Rhizopus nigricans, Ehrenberg; and 
in typhoid, Penicillium crustaceum, Fries. THe adds that the culture-experiments, 
especially with the variola diseases, haye been so very numerous as to exclude from 
the results all supposition of accident—that different districts, different epidemics, 
and different times have given identical results. I am anxious to say a few words 
about the subject, because most of the reports which have been published in our 
medical journals give too much weight, in my opinion, to his observations, as 
though the matter had been brought to a logical conclusion, which is far from 
being the case. Iam happy to say that it has been taken up by De Bary, who is so 
well calculated to give something like a conclusive answer to the question, and also 
that it has been taken in hand by the medical authorities of our army, who are 
about to send out two of their most promising young officers, perfectly unprejudiced, 
who will be in close communication both with De Bary and Hallier, so as to make 
themselves perfect masters of their views, and to investigate afterwards the subject 
for themselves. 
The fault, as I conceive, of Hallier’s treatise is, that while his mode of inyesti- 
