FUNGACEM 



969 



which they call ' actinomycetine.' They state that the injection 

 of this substance produces the same lesions as the fungus. Ceni, 

 Besta, Otto, and others, have obtained various toxins from fungi 

 of the genus Aspergillus. 



Macfadyen, by vaccinating animals with cultures of a saccharo- 

 myces, and G. H. Rogers and Concetti, using Monilia candidans 

 Robin, have noticed a production of specific agglutinins and immune 

 bodies. Similar results have been obtained by Quarelli using 

 Monilia halcanica Castellani. 



Plato, Bloch, Truffi, and others have prepared trichophyton 

 vaccines by killing with heat, and triturating cultures of these 

 fungi. By injecting these vaccines into patients suffering from 

 trichophytoses, they have observed a general reaction, with fever, 

 similar to the reaction obtained in tubercular patients by injecting 

 tuberculin. De Beurmann has described a cuti-reaction in patients 

 affected with sporotrichosis. 



Widal and Abrami have introduced a general diagnostic method, 

 ' sporo-agglutination,' based on the fact that the blood of patients 

 suffering from diseases due to fungi contain specific agglutinins for 

 the spores of such fungi. Non-specific coagglutinins may, however, 

 be present in large amount. 



Other biological reactions — complement fixation, etc. — have been 

 described. 



Reproduction. — The seeds of the Phanerogamia may be said 

 to be represented in the fungi by the roundish or oval-shaped 

 bodies called ' spores.' The spores multiply by budding, producing 

 daughter spores, identical with the parent spores. Under certain 

 conditions the spore, by a process of germination, gives rise to a 

 true mycelial filament, which ramifies, producing mycelial hyphse. 

 Some of the terminal hyphse are shorter and structurally difierent 

 from the other hyph?e, and they become organs of fructification, 

 which produce spores. The formation of spores upon these hyphse 

 takes place in various modes, of which five different types may be 

 distinguished. 



1. Conidia or Exospores. — These are non-sexual spores, which 

 take origin by a process of budding or septation from the extremity 

 of a germinal mycelial hypha or spovophora. The spores may -all 

 be of the same size, or, at other times, some are much larger, macro- 

 conidia, others smaller, micro conidia. The conidia are at first 

 always unicellular, but later they may divide and become multi- 

 cellular. 



2. Chlamy do spores or Endoconidia. — These are asexual globular 

 spores of great size, and provided with a thick membrane. Chlamy- 

 dospores are terminal or intramycelial. 



3. Endospores or Gonidia. — These spores take origin inside a 

 special spore-case structure, or sporangium, which is often terminal 

 and aerial. Endospores which are free and provided with organs 

 of locomotion (cilia or flagella) are called zoospores, and the spor- 

 angium is known under the name of zodsporangium. 



