26 1 6 Microscopical Society. 



Messrs. Michael, G. Ingall and H. Ingall, having signed the obligation-book of 

 the Society, were admitted members thereof by the chairman. 



Mr. Dallas read the continuation of a paper on the Hemiptera of Boutan, in the 

 East Indies ; and Mr. Westwood read a paper containing descriptions of various new 

 exotic Diptera, including a species of the remarkable genus Achias, from India. — 

 —J. O. W. 



Proceedings of the Microscopical Society of London. 



Note. — No Meetings of this Society have been held since the last reported in this 



Journal. 



October 17, 1849. — George Busk, Esq., President, in the chair. 



After the usual routine business had concluded, the President rose, and stated 

 that in the remarks he was about to make it was not his intention to enter into the 

 question of the origin of diseases from Fungi ; but as certain anthors had recently 

 published accounts of some peculiar appearances observed in the discharges of pa- 

 tients labouring under cholera, — when examined by the microscope, — to which they 

 attributed the disease, he thought the subject of sufficient importance to justify him 

 in calling the attention of the Society to it on that evening. He then stated that he 

 should confine his attention to the papers of Dr. William Budd, Dr. Brittan and Dr. 

 Swayne, each of whom had written papers and given drawings of bodies which they 

 supposed to be Fungi. In the first place, he remarked that amongst the varied bodies 

 figured by these gentlemen, there was only one set that bore so close a resemblance 

 to each other as to claim anything like a common character. With regard to the 

 figured bodies from air and water, they were not definite enough to yield any possi- 

 bility of classing them with one body or another. With regard to the more definite 

 bodies figured by Drs. Budd, Brittan and Swayne, and found in their preparations, 

 he had, with one exception, found these in the matter passed by cholera patients on 

 board the Dreadnought. These bodies, which were described as Fungi, were of three 

 different kinds. First, there existed a cellular body, which was more particularly 

 figured by Dr. Swayne, and existed in two of his preparations, one in the possession 

 of Dr. Lankester, and the other in his own, which evidently exhibited the characters 

 of the spore of a Uredo ; and on examining some specimens of Uredo from a loaf of 

 bread bought at a baker's, it was found to correspond precisely with the spore from 

 the cholera patient. As this species of Fungus was very common in bread that had 

 been kept, and easily resisted the digestive action of the stomach, the presence of it 

 in a few cases was well accounted for. The second class of bodies, and which under 

 a high magnifying power with a bad light looked exceedingly like the last, consisted 

 of small portions of the inner membrane of the grain of wheat. In the coarser kinds 

 of flour this membrane was not separated, and he had no doubt that these bodies were 

 introduced with the bread eaten as food. A third form of these more definite bodies 

 was evidently due to the presence of undigested starch granules. Drawings of all 

 these bodies were exhibited, and their strong resemblance to the bodies figured by the 

 Bristol observers was at once recognized. In conclusion, the author stated that he 

 did not wish to pronounce an opinion that the existence of a vegetable organism, as 



