248 The Fungus Foot of India. 



THE FUNGUS FOOT OF INDIA. 



BY THE EEV. M. J. BERKELEY, M.A., E.L.S. 



Every advanced practitioner is well aware of the immense 

 influence which fungi exercise in the production or aggravation 

 of disease in the animal as well as in the vegetable kingdom. 

 A hundred memoirs or more might be quoted bearing more or 

 less directly on the subject, besides the great work of Robin ; 

 but unfortunately, in a few instances only, the persons who have 

 recorded their experience have been sufficiently acquainted 

 with fungi in general, to give anything like a complete history 

 of the cases which have fallen under their observation, even if 

 proper leisure was available for researches which require not 

 only time, but continuous attention. Mere mycelia have in 

 consequence been described as perfect plants, mistakes have been 

 made in important points of structure, and productions of an 

 undoubted fungoid nature been referred to Algae, though agree- 

 ing with them neither in habit nor physiology, while the com- 

 monest moulds have received new names, and several conditions 

 of the same species have been registered as autonomous pro- 

 ductions. 



One of the most curious and important cases of disease 

 produced by fungi which have hitherto been recorded, is one on 

 which a report was made in March 1860, by Dr. H. Vandyke 

 Carter, the Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Grant 

 Medical College of Bombay, a disease which unhappily occurs 

 in many parts of India, and is known amongst Indian prac- 

 titioners as the Fungus Foot, or Fungus Disease of India, or 

 under the scientific names of Podelcoma or Mycetoma. This 

 disease, which has hitherto occurred amongst natives only, is 

 undoubtedly due to the presence of a fungus which eats into 

 the bones of the lower extremities, including the base of the 

 tibia and fibula, and in process of time causes death from 

 exhaustion, unless a timely amputation is made above the 

 diseased part. 



Dr. Carter kindly forwarded to me his original memoir 

 immediately after its publication, accompanied by illustrative 

 specimens preserved in alcohol. He has since had an oppor- 

 tunity of investigating other cases, which have enabled him to 

 make some additional observations, recorded in the seventh 

 volume of the Bombay Medical and Physical Society's Trans- 

 actions, in which he was materially assisted by my friend, Dr. 

 H. J. Carter, whose labours as an acute observer and physio- 

 logist are well known in this country as well as in India. The 

 latter gentleman has placed at my disposal his no'es and 



