SUPPOSED PSOEOSPEEMS UPON THE HAIE. 



227 



not simply moving Gregarines from which the structures seated on 

 the hair were produced by encystation and spore formation/ but 



Fig. 116. — Lindemann's Peorosperm-balla {B) and Gregarines (C) on human hair. 



Gregarines which were transferred to the hair from the intestine of 

 the louse, and which had Psorosperms of such power of resistance 

 that even the coiffures of ladies were infected with potentially active 

 germs, from which these Gregarinoid creatures escaped, and, wandering 

 into tlie body of their host, became again Psorosperms in the most 

 varied organs, and gave rise to manifold troubles. 



Although coiffures have been absolved from all complicity in the 

 production of " Gregarinosis," it is nevertheless quite possible that our 

 experience as to the pathological nature of the Psorosperms is not yet 

 by any means complete. Thus Ziirn has lately come to the conviction 

 that the infectious virulent influenza of the rabbit — an often fatal 

 rhinitis, which usually spreads rapidly from the nose to the pharynx 

 and tympanum, and, after perforation of the membrane, sometimes 

 attacks the external ear or passes to the intestine — is caused by para- 

 sites,^ which can be observed in great numbers as naked Gregarines 

 and Psorospermice in the affected mucous membranes and their 

 secretions. Similarly Silvestrini and Eivolta were able in 1872 

 to refer an epidemic prevalent among the fowls around Pisa to 

 Psorosperms.^ The disease was localised, like the influenza of the 

 rabbit, in the pharynx, larynx, and nose, but sometimes affected the 

 conjunctiva, intestine, or even the comb. The observers saw that 



' Knoch, who investigated Lindemann's hair Psorosperms in Russia, certainly had 

 the same structures under observation, but never found mobile forms {Journal des rus- 

 aischen Kriegsdepariements, Bd. xcv., 186fi). 



' " Die kugel- und eiformigen Psorospermien als Ursache von Krankheiten bei Haus- 

 thieren," p. 14, Leipsig, 1878. The infectious catarrh of rabbits is described as a fungoid 

 disease in Von Schmidt's work, " Die mycotischen Erkrankungen der Respirationsorgane, 

 speciell der Kaninohen : "' Hofgeismar, 1877. 



' Qiomale di anatomia, fisiologia e pathologia degli animali, Pisa, 1873 ; see also 

 Rivolta, " Parass. veget.," p. 390. 



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