10 PATHOLOGICAL MYCOLOGY. 



activity or vitality of the cell from its original resistant and stable 

 condition to one in which there is an increased vegetative activity, 

 but a diminished resistant power to the action of the bacillus itself. 

 The highly organised proteid of the cell is thus rendered available as 

 food for these minute organisms, which advance in the track of their 

 chemical vanguard, and continue the process of disorganisation and 

 disintegration. 



In this process may be recognised a most beautiful example of the 

 reaction of the bacillus and its products on the tissues, and, in turn, 

 of the tissues on the bacillus. 



Tissue Reaction. 



8. From recent researches on the mode of reproduction in certain 

 saprophytic and other fungi, ^ it appears that it is possible for a 

 parasitic fungus to derive a sufficient amount of vitality from its host 

 to enable it to reproduce its like without the aid of a sexual process, 

 the necessary stimulus being supplied by the highly organised proteids 

 which are derived from the host, the original imprint of sexual 

 power being again brought into action without further fertilisation. 

 Applying this theory to the tissue cells in which the chemical pro- 

 ducts appear to set up proliferation, does it not seem more than pro- 

 bable that these cells act the part of female cells, on which a power 

 of reproduction was imprinted at the first impregnation of the ovum, 

 but which is only called into play on the application of a stimulus, 

 probably only chemical (see work of the two Darwins on action of 

 chemical substances on sensitive and insectivorous plants), — a 

 stimulus which thus takes the part of the male element in the repro- 

 ductive process." 



* " On the Sexuality of the Fungi : " H. Marshall Ward, Quart. Journ. Micros. 

 Sci., April 1884. 



" Professor Frankland has recently defined a plant as being "an organism 

 performing synthetical functions, or one in which these functions are greatly 

 .predominant ; an animal as an organism pefrorming analytical functions, or one in 

 which these functions greatly predominate." He classes micro-organisms among 

 animals, as "their life essentially depends upon the taking asunder of more or 

 less complex compounds, resolving them into simpler compounds at the expense of 

 potential energy." 



It would be almost impossible to classify some of the higher fungi as animals, but 



