26 Relation of Microscopic Fungi. [^S^J^S JanSH^iSf 
Batisfaction the " cholera fungus " penetrated the seed corns of 
rice, and the young radicles. 
I showed you where the first lapse in the doctrine occurred, 
namely, in the introduction of the so-called " sporules " supposed 
to be contained in rice-water into the so-called " cultivation appa- 
ratus ;" but the second lapse is still more important and evident, 
for, supposing the jpresence of the fungus is allowed and established, 
it is not yet shown what is the connection of this fungus with the 
disease. How can you prove that this fungus actually destroys 
the epithelium, and does not merely live upon the products of the 
changes, as so many saprophytes do, which thrive in putrescent 
animal matter ? Here, therefore, you are quite at liberty to con- 
clude the alternative you please, and no necessity has been shown 
for us to assume that, supposing a specific fungus were actually 
there, it caused the destruction and was not merely living acci- 
dentally upon its products.* 
I believe I have fairly exhausted the main special arguments on 
this subject ; but I will look upon it for a moment in its general 
bearings. I will ask you to answer a question, and after that I will 
answer it in my own sense. I ask you, do you think it hkely that 
a botanist situated at Jena with some bottles of cholera excretion — 
four obtained from Elberfeld, and one more than six months in 
bottle from Berlin — could, at one stroke, with one glance of his eye, 
discover the cholera contagion under the microscope ? I ask you as 
microscopists whether that is probable ? Now I tell you my own 
opinion on the subject. If it were possible that a botanical pro- 
fessor could make such a discovery, and it could be well established, 
I, as a medical man, would to-day abdicate my functions. I would 
at once retire from the medical profession. I would lay down the 
serpent and stafi", which w^ould have lost their ancient dignity. I 
would say that I had been a very great impostor to mankind ; that 
I had pretended to possess a certain method of gaining knowledge 
which I did not possess ; that I had been pretending to inquire into 
some of the deepest problems, and failed to find anything, while a 
botanical professor had been capable, by a simple scrutiny with the 
aid of the microscope, to discover that which I had been searching 
for with all my might for years and years. I should under those 
circumstances rather become a drawer of water and a hewer of 
* At the meeting of German savants at Dresden in September last, Prof. 
Hallier delivered a discourse on sixteen varieties of fungi, Avhicli lie claimed to be 
specific to as many dilferent diseases. But he took entiiely new grouud by admit- 
ting tliat as yet no connection of Iheso fungi witli the diseased products in which 
they occurred had been proved. Perhaps the reader will think that the professor 
thereby removed the ground from under the question altogether. The fungus of 
variola has now become identical with a fungus common on grass. The " urocystiS 
intestinalis," which was to have been a specific inhabitant of the intestine of per- 
sons suffering from diphtheria, does not differ from the "urocystis occulta" on 
grain. 
