12 On the Becent Investigations into Jif/HlJf 
III. — Observations on the Becent Investigations into the Supposed 
Cholera Fungus, By the Kev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 
The observations wliicli were recently published by Dr. Hallier on 
the supposed origin of Cholera from Parasitic Fungi, were put forth 
with such confidence, and with such intimate acquaintance, as it 
seemed, with lower cryptogamic forms, that they excited far more 
interest in this country than they were entitled to, and, in conse- 
quence, were lauded in our journals as strictly logical, either at 
second-hand, or from a very imperfect acquaintance with the objects 
in question, insomuch that it was deemed imperative on the part 
of the medical officers of the Privy Council to submit the matter to 
a complete investigation. 
Two of the most promising candidates for employment in the 
British and Indian armies were therefore selected to examine the 
subject accurately, and to this end they were first put in connec- 
tion with the best authorities in this country and on the Continent, 
including Dr. Hallier himself, previous to setting out for India, 
where they are now carrying on their investigations. Three re- 
ports on the subject were given in the ' Lancet ' in the early part 
of the present year, which in a short compass comprise the results 
of their labours up to their departure for India. 
To a person well versed in fungi, Dr. HalHer's observations 
appeared too vague and undecided to inspire much confidence, and 
the more so as it was clear that he had very loose notions as to the 
real characters of genera. His leading point, that he had succeeded 
by a series of changes in producing Urocystis occulta from cholera 
dejections — a fungus which might possibly occur in the rice plant 
— was at once invalidated by the fact that what he figures as that 
species was totally different from the plant of Wallroth, by whom 
it was first described as growing on rye, a fact which was easily 
ascertained, as good specimens of the fungus in question were in 
the hands of fungologists as published by Eabenhorst. It became, 
however, matter of interest to ascertain what fungi really grow 
upon the rice plant; and accordingly pains have been taken by 
Mr. Thwaites, the acute Director of the Botanical Garden at Pera- 
deniya in Ceylon, than whom few have a more intimate acquaint- 
ance with cryptogamic plants, to acquire every possible information 
both in India and Ceylon. All his inquiries, however, have failed 
to detect a single fungus on the rice plant, even distantly allied to 
the Urocystis (Polycystis Auct): indeed the only fungus which 
has been detected is a httle species of Cladosporium, differing from 
the universally diffused Cladosporium herharum, and which, like 
that, is clearly an aftergrowth, and not a true parasite. Amongst 
