365 



BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



roughly healthy child or man is proof against the 

 attacks of Oidlum albicans. When from lowered health 

 however, the blood of the silk-worm tends to acquire 

 an acid reaction, or the mucous membranes of the 

 infant or of the man assume such a condition then 

 the respective organisms may appear, and general or 

 local morbid conditions may be established i. 

 Again, the experiments . of Dr. Sprin 



0-2 



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in 



many 

 attempts to produce a direct inoculation of hens' eggs 



were very unsuccessful, even though the inoculation was 

 made with portions of a fungus which had been pro- 

 duced in an uninjured egg. Very rarely, indeed, did a 

 growth start from the seat of inoculation^ though fre- 

 quently an entirely different form sprang up at the 

 opposite extremity of the egg, in a region which was 



apparently quite beyond the reach of contamination. 

 And, again, such facts are rendered all the more sig- 

 nificant by reason of the interesting researches of 

 Harless \ showing that fungi may be made to appear, 

 almost at will, in eggs which are exposed for a few 

 days in the chamber of an incubator saturated with 



^ How important such a modification may be, in enabling evolutional 

 changes to occur in certain fluids, is to be surmised, as we have previously 

 hinted, from the often quoted experiments of Dutrochet, who found that 

 white of egg diluted with distilled water remained for more than a year 

 without becoming covered by mould ; whilst, by rendering it slightly 

 acid, a crop of these organisms became developed in less than eight 



2 'Bullet, de I'Acad. Roy. de Belgique,' 1852, t. xix. p. 573; or 

 abstract in Robin's 'Vegetaux Parasites,' pp. 545-54. 

 ^ Quoted by Robin, loc. cit., p. 559. 



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