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XIX. 



ON A METHOD OF PEEPAEING SCHIZOMYCETES,SAO- 

 CHAEOMYCETES, AND HYPHOMYCETES AS MUSEUM 

 SPECIMENS, WITH A DEMONSTEATION OP ILLUSTEA- 

 TIVE CULTIVATIONS. By E. J. M'WEENEY, M.A., M.D. 



[Eead December 16, 1891.] 



AVe possess here in Dublin a magnificent Natural History 

 Museum replete with specimens illustrative of almost every 

 division of the animal and vegetable kingdoms : it does not 

 however contain, so far as I am aware, any naked-eye specimens 

 of the lowest fungi. This fact might not at first sight seem a 

 grave defect — if indeed at all a defect — ^in a natural-history 

 collection. It might be said, and not without a show of reason, 

 that these minute plants are not of sufficient importance to entitle 

 them to a place in a museum, and that their dimensions are not 

 large enough to admit of their being displayed without the aid of 

 the microscope. I hope in the following remarks to show that 

 the former proposition is erroneous, and that the latter, though 

 undoubtedly true of the individual members of the species, may 

 by suitable technique be invalidated. 



Commencing with the most highly-organized of the fungi 

 that I have selected as the subject of this paper — the Torula-like 

 Hyphomycetes can hardly claim, as a body, sufficient general 

 interest, to entitle them to a place in most museums — especially as 

 they are mostly believed, and some are known, to be only forms of 

 fungi which may assume, under suitable conditions, a much higher 

 degree of differentiation. There are, however, certain species 

 which grow parasitically on human skin and hair, and on similar 

 organs in the lower animals, and give rise to much discomfort, 

 the most usual conditions to which they give rise being termed 

 "ringworm" and "favus." Without entering upon medical 

 or pathological territory, I think it may safely be said that these 



