46 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 
a 
botanist in Munich, demonstrates the action of micro- 
scopic fungi. on organic substances, exclusive of any 
previous deterioration. 
“T enclosed,” he says, “several loaves in a tin case, 
which was carefully but not hermetically closed. 
When the case was opened at the end of eighteen 
months, the loaves were reduced to a small mass, 
consisting almost entirely of filaments of mould, in 
which I could detect no trace of the substance of 
bread. This mass was soft and moist, like a mud-pie. 
It emitted a strong odour of trimethylamin: no trace 
of starch remained. One hundred parts in weight 
of the original bread were transformed into sixty-four 
parts in their moist state, and seventeen parts after 
desiccation in the open air. The 
starch had been consumed in order 
to form carbonic acid and water.” 
Badham sums up in a few 
words the destructive effects of 
microscopic fungi. “Mucor mu- 
cedo,” he writes, “devours our pre- 
serves; Ascophora mucedo turns 
-our bread mouldy; Molinia is 
nourished at the expense of our 
fruits; Mucor herbarium destroys 
Fig. 19,—Chatonium char- the herbaria of botanists; and 
Sf a toa Chetonium chartatwm (Actino- 
spora) develops itself on paper, on the insides of books, 
and on their binding, when they come in contact with 
