MTIOLOGY— MORBID ANATOMY 



1579 



etiology. — ^The cause of the disease is Rhinosporidium seeberi 

 Wernicke, 1900 (p. 533), which is present in the growths in the 

 form of clear hyahne roundish cysts of varying diameter. 

 The life-history in man appears to be as follows: — 

 The free spores, which are small spherical ovoid bodies with single 

 chromatinic masses, grow into sporocysts which have a few chrorna- 

 tinic granules. These sporocysts grow into larger bodies containing 

 a few centrally placed pansporoblasts. When these cysts are 

 mature they are filled with pansporoblasts which have formed spore 

 morulse containing some fourteen to sixteenfclear shining spores. 



Fig. 708. — Section of Nasal Polypus showing Rhinosporidium seeberi 

 AT I AND 2. (X30.) Ceylon Case. (Photomicrograph.) 



I is reproduced much more highly magnified in Fig. 709. 



The cyst ruptures, the pansporoblasts escape and rupture, and so 

 allow the spores to be liberated. Spores probabl}^ escape from the 

 nose and other parts, and possibly infect man in this way, because 

 there is some slight evidence of transference direct from man to 

 man, though we were unable to trace any such cause in our Ceylon 

 case. Probably the reservoir for the parasite is in some unknown 

 animal. Spores which do not escape from the body propagate 

 the parasite in the patient. 



Morbid Anatomy. — ^When a polypus is teased out in the normal 

 saline it will be observed that it is stalked, and that from this central 

 peduncle strands of fibrous tissue branch out into processes. The 



