14 
Relation of Microscopic Fungi to 
["The Monthly Microscopical 
L Journal, January 1, 1869. 
sibly be insufficient to induce beyond a certain extent the molecular 
change, supposed to belong to such an impulse, may excite in it a 
stimulus, which is at once added and propagated in the original 
direction. 
The irregular character of the outline of the nerve-substance in 
the dark-bordered sensory nerves of the papilla, with their almost 
chain-like appearance, if natural, seems due to a want of union of the 
white substance in the intermediate links, and would, I think, lead to 
the supposition that the white substance does not play the part of 
insulating the axis- cylinder only ; by dissolving out some of the fatty 
matter, many of the dark-bordered nerve-fibres retain very much 
the appearance of the fine nucleated nerves, whilst in others no such 
change is perceptible. 
Modern discovery has largely advanced the knowledge of minute 
anatomy, yet its present state is insufficient for the demands of scien- 
tific exactitude. Much time and labour will be required to gather 
the facts already worked out by various observers, and bring their 
valuable contributions into a comprehensive concordance ; while re- 
investigation, where needed, offers the most ready method of dealing 
with the difficult and abstruse points on which opinion is divided, 
— the quickest mode of correcting error, and determining the value 
of the conditions which underlie the best theories : — yet before 
existing analogy shall become identity, and the phases of such 
minute distinction be brought into harmony, we may conclude that 
the smouldering embers of controversy will lie many lines deeper. 
II. — The Relation of Microscopic Fungi to Great Pathological 
Processes, particularly/ the Process of Cholera. 
By J. L. W. Thudichum, M.D., &c.. Professor of Pathological 
Chemistry in St. Thomas's Hospital. 
(A Discourse delivered before the Eoyal Microscopical Society, 
June 10, 1868.) 
Mr. Pbesident and Gentlemen, 
I appear to-day before you without either specimen or 
diagram, and therefore depart from a practice which, as beneficial, 
has become almost universal in discussions of natural science, 
namely, that of demonstration. But I do so for a particular pur- 
pose, which I may indicate as my desire to restore thought to its 
right in relation to a particular subject. It has occurred in the 
matter under our consideration what a celebrated philosopher has 
warned against : stupid things put before the eye have a magical 
right ; because they keep the senses prisoners, the spirit remains a 
