ng hundreds of figures of organic bodies collected from
the air between February and September. It is valuable both for its
evidence as to the number and character of the spores in the air, and
also for the tables showing the relation between five forms of
disease, and their fluctuations, as compared with the amount of spores
floating in the atmosphere.

We are fain to believe that we have represented the influence of fungi
on man as far as evidence seems to warrant. The presence of forms of
mould in some of their incipient conditions in different diseased
parts of the human body, externally and internally, may be admitted
without the assumption that they are in any manner the cause of the
diseased tissues, except in such cases as we have indicated. Hospital
gangrene may be alluded to in this connection, and it is possible that
it may be due to some fungus allied to the crimson spots (blood rain)
which occur on decayed vegetation and meat in an incipient stage of
decomposition. This fungus was at one time regarded as an algal, at
another as animal; but it is much more probable that it is a low
condition of some common mould. The readiness with which the spores of
fungi floating in the atmosphere adhere to and establish themselves on
all putrid or corrupt substances is manifest in the experience of all
who have had to do with the dressing of wounds, and in this case it is
a matter of the greatest importance that, as much as possible,
atmospherical contact should be avoided.

Recently a case occurred at the Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh which was
somewhat novel. The assistant to the botanical professor was preparing
for demonstration some dried specimens of a large puff-ball, filled
with the dust-like spores, which he accidentally inhaled, and was for
some time confined to his room under medical attendance from the
irritation they caused. This would seem to prove that the spores of
some fungi are liable, when inhaled in large quantities, to derange
the system and become dangerous; but under usual and natural
conditions such spores are not likely to be present in the atmosphere
in sufficient quantity to cause inconvenience. In the autumn a very
large number of basidiospores must be present in the atmosphere of
woods, and yet there is no reason to believe that it is more unhealthy
to breathe the atmosphere of a wood in September or October than in
January or May. Dreadful effects are said to be produced by a species
of bla