REPORTS OF CASES. 
365 
les of the lung. They were often acinose or mulberry-shaped, and 
'hen teased apart found to consist of fungoid filaments closely 
itertwined, with expanded or knobbed extremities. Microscopic 
samination showed that the filaments represented the hyphens 
nd conidia of a vegetable organization, closely allied to, if not a 
lember of, the mould fungi, but a species that had never been 
nown independently of this disease. The conidia or spores 
idiate from the stem of the hyphens, something like the petals 
f the common daisy, and hence the name actinomyces ( actinos , 
ray, and muJces , a fungus). These appear to be two varieties 
£ the fungus, or two forms under which it is found. 
In 1878 James Israel published the histories of two human 
atients, who died with pysemic phenomena, but where these 
ingi were found in the diseased tissues; it was not then known 
lat the human family was attacked. In fact, though Israel de¬ 
nted the parasitis and described them, he did not appear to 
3alize their true relation to the disease, nor did Langenbeck, 
r ho, in 1845, was probably the first to have observed them in 
ither man or animals. 
Ponfick, however, deserves the credit of being the first who 
^cognized the causal relation they have to a variety of peculiar 
Sections. At an antopsy in the Pathological Institute of Breslau, 
e found these fungi in the case of a man forty-five years of age, 
'ho had been suffering from a chronic pulmonary complaint, 
'here an abscess had developed upon the right pleura. In the 
itne year he saw and studied four additional cases. 
In 1881 Partsch published two more and Kosenbach, of Goetin- 
en, gave the clinical histories of others. Altogether, Ponfick 
ad collected sixteen cases in his monograph published in 1882. 
te had then studied it in over fifty animals, chiefly horned cattle, 
te found that with them it usually attacked the jaw, near its 
ngle. Here a protuberant mass pushed its way through the 
dn; hogs were attacked in a similar way, but more commonly 
took the form with them of a suppnrative mastitis. In cattle a 
)ontaneous cure may take place. Experiments thus far appear 
) indicate that it is not engendered by feeding; but after in¬ 
sulation, or injection into the vessels, the characteristic phe- 
