INFLUENCES AND EFFECTS. 213 



merate all these diseases, with which medical men are familiar, 

 bat simply to indicate a few. There is favus or scall-head, 

 called also '' porrigo," which has its primary seat in the hair 

 follicles. Plica polonica, which is endemic in Russia, is almost 

 cosmopolitan. Then there is Tinea tonsurans, Alopecia, 

 Sycosis, &c, and in India a more deeply-seated disease, the 

 Madura Foot, has been traced to the ravages of a fungus 

 described under the name of Chionyphe Carleri.* It is probable 

 that the application of different names to the very often im- 

 perfect forms of fungi which are associated with different 

 diseases is not scientifically tenable. Perhaps one or two 

 common moulds, such as Aspergillus or Penicillium, lie at the 

 base of the majority, but this is of little importance here, and 

 does not affect the general principle that some skin diseases are 

 due to fungi. 



Whilst admitting that there are such diseases, it must be 

 understood that diseases have been attributed to fungi as a 

 primary cause, when the evidence does not warrant such a 

 conclusion. Diphtheria and thrush have been referred to the 

 devastations of fungi, whereas diphtheria certainly may and 

 does occur without any trace of. fungi. . Fevers may some- 

 times be accompanied by fungoid bodies in the evacuations, 

 but it is very difficult to determine them. The whole 

 question of epidemic diseases being caused by the presence 

 of fungi seems based on most incomplete evidence. Dr. 

 Salisbury was of opinion that camp measles was produced by 

 Puccinia graminis, the pseudospores of which germinated in 

 the damp straw, disseminated the resultant secondary bodies in 

 the air, and caused the disease. This has never been verified. 

 Measles, too, has been attributed freely, as well as scarlatina,t 

 to fungal influences, and the endeavours to implicate fungi in 

 being the cause of cholera have been pertinaciously persevered 

 in with no conviction. The presence of certain cysts, said to 

 be those of Urocystis, derived from rice, was announced by Dr. 



* Berkeley, in "Intellectual Observer," Nov., 1862. "Mycetoma," II. 

 Vandyke Carter, 1874. 

 f Hallier and Zurn, "Zeitschrift fur Parasitenkunde.'' Jena, 1869-71. 



