ACTINOMYKOSIS. 
121 
I cannot do more here than briefly refer to some of these 
cases, to show their relationship to those occurring among 
animals. 
Professor Ponfick’s original case was that of a powerfully- 
built man, aged forty-live, who had suffered from the sequelse of 
pleurisy on the left side for a year and eight months. After 
death, there was found an extensive prsevertehral phlegmonous 
inflammation in the posterior mediastinum, with a parapleuritic 
abscess-cavity extending both to the right and left, at the level 
of the seventh, eighth, and ninth intercostal spaces; with this 
cavity there communicated a complex system of sinuses, extend¬ 
ing through the substance of the longissimus dorsi, the scapular 
muscles, and the subcutaneous tissues of the whole back. The 
sulphur-yellow fungus-bodies were found upon or between the 
granulations of these sinuses and in their substance, as well as 
in the sero-purulent discharge; they were also found in a cavity 
of the size of a cherry, which occupied the centre of a hepatised 
area of the left lung (lower lobe), as well as in the exudation 
that filled some of the neighboring alveoli. The second case 
was that of a woman aged sixty-one, admitted with an abscess 
of the lower part of the abdominal wall; she subsequently de¬ 
veloped another abscess of the left iliac fossa, without recurring 
symptoms of peritonitis, and died from exhaustion. After death, 
caries (witii prsevertehral collection of pus) of the three lower 
lumbar and first sacral vertebrse, abscesses in both iliac fossae, 
and perityphlitic adhesions, were found. The yellow fungus 
bodies were discovered in the pus of the prsevertehral abscess. 
The third case was that of a woman, aged forty-five, who had 
suffered an injury of the right thumb three years before, with 
swelling of the arm, which did not subside, but extended to the 
neck and back, and was accompanied by progressive weakness. 
The necropsy revealed extensive sinuses on the left side of the 
neck and in the prsevertehral tissue, a knob-like excrescence of 
new growth extending into the lumen of the internal jugular 
vein, a tumor, of the size of an apple, growing into the right 
auricle and ventricle, with corresponding whitish centres in the 
ventricular substance, and gelatinous nodules in the spleen and 
