12 Mr. Bauer’s microscopical observations on the 
the mucus is dissolved, the air in the lungs is rarified, and 
forces its way out, so that fresh air rushes into the lungs, and 
it recovers. 
I must however state, that this mucus continues to exist 
in grains of wheat now more than twenty years old, though 
the worms within them have, more than twelve years ago, 
lost their reviviscent quality ; but whether length of time can, 
or cannot, effect such chemical change in the nature of that 
mucus, and by what means it has lost this preserving power, I 
must leave for others to decide. 
Since writing these observations, I find that a great deal 
has been written on the subject by authors of eminence, and 
I have had an opportunity of reading the works of the un- 
dermentioned writers.* After an attentive perusal of their 
* Turbervil Needham appears to have been the first discoverer of this extra- 
ordinary animal. In his “ Microscopical Observations on the Worms discovered in 
“ Smutty Corn,” published in 1744, in the XLII. volume of the Philosophical 
Transactions ; and in a small volume, under the title of “ An Account of some 
New Microscopical Discoveries,” &c. &c. published in London, 1745, he most cor- 
rectly describes these worms, and their ceconomy, illustrating his description by very 
correct figures ; yet, in a subsequent publication, he most unaccountably retracts 
every thing he had before stated respecting them, and declares the white fibrous 
substance to be true zoophytes. 
Maurice Roffredi, in his “ Memoir surl’Origine des petits Vers ou Anguilles 
“ du Bled Rachitique ” published in the 5th volume of the Journal de Physique, 
1775, has also written fully on this subject. He seems to have attentively observed the 
whole ceconomy and peculiarities of these minute animals, in all the stages of their 
existence, but fell into a very great error, mistaking worms found in the stalk of a 
sickly young plant of wheat, for the same as those with which he had inoculated his 
seed grains. The worms he found, constitute a distinct disease in corn, a detailed 
account of which, with illustrations, is among my original drawings of all the 
diseases in corn, now deposited in the Banksian Library. In the same 5th volume 
of the Journal de Physique, page 197, Roffredi published a second memoir on 
