216 FUNGI. 
able both for its evidence as to the number and character of the 
spores in the air, and also for the tables showing the relation 
between five forms of disease, and their fluctuations, as com- 
pared with the amount of spores floating in the atmosphere. 
We are fain to believe that we have represented the influence 
of fungi on man as far as evidence seems to warrant. The 
presence of forms of mould in some of their incipient conditions 
in different diseased parts of the human body, externally and 
internally, may be admitted without the assumption that they 
are in any manner the cause of the diseased tissues, except in 
such cases as we have indicated. Hospital gangrene may be 
alluded to in this connection, and it is possible that it may be 
due to some fungus allied to the crimson spots (blood rain) 
which occur on decayed vegetation and meat in an incipient 
stage of decomposition. This fungus was at one time regarded 
as an algal, at another as animal; but it is much more probable 
that it is a low condition of somecommonmould. The readiness 
with which the spores of fungi floating in the atmosphere 
adhere to and establish themselves on all putrid or corrupt sub- 
stances is manifest in the experience of all who hove had to do 
with the dressing of wounds, and in this case it is a matter of 
the greatest importance that, as much as possible, atmospherical 
contact should be avoided. 
Recently a case occurred at the Botanic Gardens at Edin- 
burgh which was somewhat novel. The assistant to the bota- 
nical professor was preparing for demonstration some dried 
specimens of a large puff-ball, filled with the dust-like spores, 
which he accidentally inhaled, and was for some time confined 
to his room under medical attendance from the irritation they 
caused. This would seem to prove that the spores of some 
fungi are liable, when inhaled in large quantities, to derange 
the system and become dangerous ; but under usual and natural 
conditions such spores are not likely to be present in the atmo- 
sphere in sufficient quantity to cause inconvenience. In the 
autumn a very large number of basidiospores must be present 
in the atmosphere of woods, and yet there is no reason to 
believe that it is more unhealthy to breathe the atmosphere of 
