7 55 
FUNGI IN COW^S MILK. 
and fell in fine threads from the point of a needle dipped in 
it. Placed under the microscope, it showed an abnormal 
adhesiveness of the oil-globules, which had accumulated in 
dense masses, in place of remaining apart as in healthy 
milk. Intermixed with the globules were dark-coloured 
spherical bodies of a much larger size (spores), and fila¬ 
ments. This cryptogam steadily grew, and at the end of 
forty-eight hours had attained considerable dimensions. 
Neither at this date nor later did any of the other speci¬ 
mens present the tenacious character of the cream nor any 
cryptogamic growth. 
On October 9th I visited the farm where the cows were 
kept, went over the buildings and pastures, and secured 
specimens of the food and water. The buildings were clean 
and well kept. The pastures w r ere on a dry, open, sabulous 
soil, well drained by reason of their structure and their ab¬ 
rupt inclination to the north, and resting on the calcareous 
formation common to the district. On a careful search no 
decomposing matter, animal or vegetable, was found suffi¬ 
cient to arouse suspicion. The food presented nothing ab¬ 
normal. Water was obtainable at two points in the pasture. 
One was from an open spring, which looked perfectly clean 
and pure; the other spring flowed from a bank rich in black 
vegetable matter (muck), and was carried by a wooden gut¬ 
ter into a trough of the same material. The naked eye 
could detect nothing amiss with this water, though, as is 
usual in hot weather, the sides of the trough were covered 
with a green vegetable product. As the water issued from 
the bank in a constant stream, it overflowed the trough and 
stood in little stagnant pools in the imprints of the cows’ 
feet, mixed with the faeces and urine of the animals. There 
is no reason, however, to suppose that the cows drank out of 
these mud-holes. In the absence of suitable vessels, water 
w r as taken from the trough and from the spring first men¬ 
tioned into the same bottle. 
On examination this water w r as found to contain nume¬ 
rous diatoms and many ovoid or elliptical bodies, which 
appeared to be spores of some low form of vegetable life. 
A little of this w^ater was added to some baby’s milk from 
the same source as that which gave negative results in the 
first experiments, and corked up in a previously scalded 
bottle. Three days later it had acquired the viscidity of the im¬ 
pure specimens, and contained numerous spores and mycelium. 
The water w r as allowed to stand in the corked bottle for 
one month, and on November 9th contained an abundant 
cryptogamic growth. 
