1. _Lemaneæ_.--Frond filamentous, inarticulate, cartilaginous, leathery,
hollow, furnished at irregular distances with whorls or warts, or
necklace shaped. Fructification: tufted, simple or branched, necklace
shaped filaments attached to the inner surface of the tubular frond, and
finally breaking up into elliptical spores. Aquatic.
2. _Batrachospermeæ_--Plants filamentous, articulated, invested with
gelatine. Frond composed of aggregated, articulated, longitudinal cells,
whorled at intervals with short, horizontal, cylindrical or beaded,
jointed ramuli. Fructification: ovate spores and tufts of antheridial
cells attached to the lateral ramuli, which consist of minute,
radiating, dichotomous beaded filaments. Aquatic.
3. _Chaetophoraceæ_.--Plants growing in the sea or fresh water, coated
by gelatinous substance; either filiform or a number of filaments being
connected together constituting gelatinous, definitely formed, or
shapeless fronds or masses. Filaments jointed, bearing bristle-like
processes. Fructification: zoospores produced from the cell contents of
the filaments; resting spores formed from the contents of particular
cells after impregnation by ciliated spermatozoids produced in distinct
antheridial cells. Coleochætæ.
4. _Confervaceæ_.--Plants growing in the sea or in fresh water,
filamentous, jointed, without evident gelatine (forming merely a
delicate coat around the separate filaments) Filaments very variable in
appearance, simple or branched; the cells constituting the articulations
of the filaments more or less filled with green, or very rarely brown or
purple granular matter; sometimes arranged in peculiar patterns on the
walls, and convertible into spores or zoospores. Not conjugating.
5. _Zygnemaceæ_.--Aquatic filamentous plants, without evident gelatine,
composed of series of cylindrical cells, straight or curved. Cell
contents often arranged in elegant patterns on the walls. Reproduction
resulting from conjugation, followed by the development of a true spore,
in some genera dividing into four sporules before germinating.
6. _OEdogoniaceæ_.--Simple or branched aquatic filamentous plants
attached without gelatine. Cell contents uniform, dense, cell division
accompanied by circumscissile debiscence of the parent cell, producing
rings on the filaments. Reproduction by zoospores formed of the whole
contents of a cell, with a crown of numerous cilia; resting spores
formed in sporangial cells after fecundation by ciliated spermatozoids
formed in antheridial cells.
7. _Siphonaceæ_--Plants found in the sea, fresh water, or on damp
ground; of a membranous or horny byaline substance, filled with green
or colorless granular matter. Fronds consisting of continuous tubular
filaments, either free or collected into spongy masses of various
shapes. Crustaceous, globular, cylindrical, or flat. Fructification: by
zoospores, either single or very numerous, and by resting spores formed
in sporangial cells after the contents have been impregnated by the
contents of autheridial cells of different forms.
8 _Oscillatoriaceæ_.--Plants growing either in the sea, fresh water, or
on damp ground, of a gelatinous substance and filamentous structure.
Filaments very slender, tubular, continuous, filled with colored,
granular, transversely striated substance; seldom blanched, though often
cohering together so as to appear branched; usually massed together
in broad floating or sessile strata, of a very gelatinous nature;
occasionally erect and tufted, and still more rarely collected into
radiating series bound together by firm gelatine and then forming
globose lobed or flat crustaceous fronds. Fructification: the internal
mass or contents separating into roundish or lenticular gonidia.
9. _Nostochacæ_.--Gelatinous plants growing in fresh water, or in damp
situations among mosses, etc.; of soft or almost leathery substance,
consisting of variously curled or twisted necklace-shaped filaments,
colorless or green, composed of simple, or in some stages double rows
of cells, contained in a gelatinous matrix of definite form, or heaped
together without order in a gelatinous mass. Some of the cells enlarged,
and then forming either vesicular empty cells or densely filled
sporangial cells. Reproduction: by the breaking up of the filaments, and
by resting spores formed singly in the sporanges.
10. _Ulvaceæ_.--Marine or aquatic algae consisting of membranous, flat,
and expanded tubular or saccate fronds composed of polygonal cells
firmly joined together by their sides.
Reproduced by zoospores formed from the cell contents and breaking
out from the surface, or by motionless spores formed from the whole
contents.
11. _Palmellaceæ_.--Plants forming gelatinous or pulverulent crusts on
damp surfaces of stone, wood, earth, mud, swampy districts, or more
or less regular masses of gelatinous substance or delicate
pseudo-membranous expansion or fronds, of flat, globular, or tubular
form, in fresh water or on damp ground; composed of one or many,
sometimes innumerable, cells, with green, red, or yellowish contents,
spherical or elliptical form, the simplest being isolated cells found in
groups of two, four, eight, etc., in course of multiplication. Others
permanently formed of some multiple of four; the highest forms made up
of compact, numerous, more or less closely joined cells. Reproduction:
by cell division, by the conversion of the cell contents into zoospores,
and by resting spores, formed sometimes after conjugation; in other
cases, probably, by fecundation by spermatozoids. All the unicellular
algæ are included under this head.
12. _Desmidiaceæ_.--Microscopic gelatinous plants, of a screen color,
growing in fresh water, composed of cells devoid of a silicious coat,
of peculiar forms such as oval, crescentic, shortly cylindrical,
cylindrical, oblong, etc., with variously formed rays or lobes, giving
a more or less stellate form, presenting a bilateral symmetry, the
junction of the halves being marked by a division of the green contents;
the individual cells being free, or arranged in linear series, collected
into fagot-like bundles or in elegant star like groups which are
embedded in a common gelatinous coat. Reproduced by division and by
resting spores produced in sporangia formed after the conjugation of
two cells and union of their contents, and by zoospores formed in the
vegetative cells or in the germinating resting spores.
13. _Diatomaceæ_.--Microscopic cellular bodies, growing in fresh,
brackish, and sea water: free or attached, single, or embedded in
gelatinous tubes, the individual cells (frustules) with yellowish or
brown contents, and provided with a silicious coat composed of two
usually symmetrical valves variously marked, with a connecting band or
hoop at the suture. Multiplied by division and by the formation of new
larger individuals out of the contents of individual conjugated cells;
perhaps also by spores and zoospores.
14. _Volvocineæ_.--Microscopic cellular fresh water plants, composed of
groups of bodies resembling zoospores connected into a definite form
by their enveloping membranes. The families are formed either of
assemblages of coated zoospores united in a definite form by the
cohesion of their membranes, or assemblages of naked zoospores inclosed
in a common investing membrane. The individual zoospore-like bodies,
with two cilia throughout life, perforating the membranous coats, and by
their conjoined action causing a free co-operative movement of the whole
group. Reproduction by division, or by single cells being converted into
new families; and by resting spores formed from some of the cells after
impregnation by spermatozoids formed from the contents of other cells of
the same family.
[Illustration: MALARIA PLANTS COLLECTED AT 165TH STREET, EAST OF 10TH
AVENUE, OCT., 1881.
Plate IX.--Large group of malaria plants, Gemiasma verdans, collected at
165th Street, east of 10th Avenue, New York, in October, 1881, by Dr.
Ephraim Cutter, and projected by him with a solar microscope. Dr.
Cuzner--the artist--outlined the group on the screen and made the
finished drawing from the sketch. He well preserved the grouping and
relative sizes. The pond hole whence they came was drained in the spring
of 1882, and in August was covered with coarse grass and weeds. No
plants were found there in satisfactory quantity, but those figured
on Plate VIII. were found half a mile beyond. This shows how draining
removes the malaria plants.]
From the description I think you have placed your plants in the right
family. And evidently they come in the genera named, but at present
there is in the authorities at my command so much confusion as to the
genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like Nageli, Kutzing,
Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would be quite unwise for
me to settle here, or try to settle here, questions that baffle the
naturalists who are entirely devoted to this specialty. We can safely
leave this to them. Meantime let us look at the matter as physicians
who desire the practical advantages of the discovery you have made.
To illustrate this position let us take a familiar case. A boy going
through the fields picks and eats an inedible mushroom. He is poisoned
and dies. Now, what is the important part of history here from a
physician's point of view? Is it not that the mushroom poisoned the
child? Next comes the nomenclature. What kind of agaricus was it? Or was
it one of the gasteromycetes, the coniomycetes, the hyphomycetes, the
ascomycetes, or one of the physomycetes? Suppose that the fungologists
are at swords' points with each other about the name of the particular
fungus that killed the boy? Would the physicians feel justified to sit
down and wait till the whole crowd of naturalists were satisfied, and
the true name had been settled satisfactorily to all? I trow not; they
would warn the family about eating any more; and if the case had not yet
perished, they would let the nomenclature go and try all the means that
history, research, and instructed common sense would suggest for the
recovery.
This leads me here to say that physicians trust too much to the simple
dicta of men who may be very eminent in some department of natural
history, and yet ignorant in the very department about which, being
called upon, they have given an opinion. All everywhere have so much
to learn that we should be very careful how we reject new truths,
especially when they come from one of our number educated in our own
medical schools, studied under our own masters. If the subject is
one about which we know nothing, we had better say so when asked our
opinion, and we should receive with respect what is respectfully offered
by a man whom we know to be honest, a hard worker, eminent in his
department by long and tedious labors. If he asks us to look over his
evidence, do so in a kindly spirit, and not open the denunciations of
bar room vocabularies upon the presenter, simply because we don't see
his point. In other words, we should all be receptive, but careful in
our assimilation, remembering that some of the great operations in
surgery, for example, came from laymen in low life, as the operation for
stone, and even the operation of spaying came from a swineherd.
It is my desire, however, to have this settled as far as can be among
scientists, but for the practical uses of practicing physicians I say
that far more evidence has been adduced by you in support of the cause
of intermittent fever than we have in the etiology of many other
diseases. I take the position that so long as no one presents a better
history of the etiology of intermittent fever by facts and observations,
your theory must stand. This, too, notwithstanding what may be said to
the contrary.
Certainly you are to be commended for having done as you have in this
matter. It is one of the great rights of the profession, and duties
also, that if a physician has or thinks he has anything that is new and
valuable, to communicate it, and so long as he observes the rules of
good society the profession are to give him a respectful hearing,
even though he may have made a mistake. I do not think you had a fair
hearing, and hence so far as I myself am concerned I indorse your
position, and shall do so till some one comes along and gives a better
demonstration. Allow me also to proceed with more evidence.
Observation at West Falmouth, Mass., Sept 1, 1877. I made five
observations in like manner about the marshes and bogs of this town,
which is, as it were, situated on the tendo achillis of Cape Cod, Mass.
In only one of these observations did I find any palmellæ like the ague
plants, and they were not characteristic.
Chelsea, Mass., near the Naval Hospital, September 5, 1877. Three sets
of observations. In all spores were found and some sporangia, but
they were not the genuine plants as far as I could judge. They were
Protococcaceæ. It is not necessary to add that there are no cases of
intermittent fever regarded as originating on the localities named.
Still, the ancient history of New England contains some accounts of ague
occurring there, but they are not regarded as entirely authentic.
Observation. Lexington, Mass, September 6, 1877. Observation made in
a meadow. There was no saline incrustation, and no palmellæ found. No
local malaria.
Observation. Cambridge, Mass. Water works on the shore of Fresh Pond.
Found a few palmellæ analogous to, but not the ague palmellæ.
Observation. Woburn, Mass, September 27, 1877, with Dr. J. M. Moore.
Found some palmellæ, but scanty. Abundance of spores of cryptogams.
Observation. Stonington, Conn., August 15, 1877. Examined a pond hole
nearly opposite the railroad station on the New York Shore Line. Found
abundantly the white incrustation on the surface of the soil. Here I
found the spores and the sporangias of the gemiasmas verdans and rubra.
Observation 2. Repetition of the last.
Observation 3. I examined some of an incrustation that was copiously
deposited in the same locality, which was not white or frosty, but dark
brown and a dirty green. Here the spores were very abundant, and a few
sporangias of the Gemiasma rubra. Ague has of late years been noted in
Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Observations in Connecticut. Middlefield near Middletown, summer of
1878. Being in this locality, I heard that intermittent fever was
advancing eastward at the rate of ten miles a year. It had been observed
in Middlefield. I was much interested to see if I could find the
gemiasmas there. On examining the dripping of some bog moss, I found a
plenty of them.
Observations in Connecticut. New Haven. Early in the summer of 1881 I
visited this city. One object of my visit was to ascertain the truth
of the presence of intermittent fever there, which I had understood
prevailed to such an extent that my patient, a consumptive, was afraid
to return to his home in New Haven. At this time I examined the hydrant
water of the city water works, and also the east shore of the West
River, which seemed to be too full of sewage. I found a plenty of the
Oscillatoreaceæ, but no Palmellæ.
In September I revisited the city, taking with me a medical gentleman
who, residing in the South, had had a larger experience with the disease
than I. From the macroscopical examination he pronounced a case we
examined to be ague, but I was not able to detect the plants either in
the urine or blood. This might have been that I did not examine long
enough. But a little later I revisited the city and explored the soil
about the Whitney Water Works, whence the city gets its supply of
water, and I had no difficulty in finding a good many of the plants
you describe as found by you in ague cases. At a still later period my
patient, whom I had set to use the microscope and instructed how to
collect the ague plants, set to work himself. One day his mother brought
in a film from off an ash pile that lay in the shade, and this her son
found was made up of an abundance of the ague plants. By simply winding
a wet bandage around the slide, Mr. A. was enabled to keep the plants
in good condition until the time of my next visit, when I examined and
pronounced them to be genuine plants.
I should here remark that I had in examining the sputa of this patient
sent to me, found some of the ague plants. He said that he had been
riding near the Whitney Pond, and perceived a different odor, and
thought he must have inhaled the miasm. I told him he was correct in his
supposition, as no one could mistake the plants; indeed, Prof. Nunn, of
Savannah, Ga., my pupil recognized it at once.
This relation, though short, is to me of great importance. So long as I
could not detect the gemiasmas in New Haven, I was very skeptical as to
the presence of malaria in New Haven, as I thought there must be some
mistake, it being a very good cloak to hide under (malaria). There is no
doubt but that the name has covered lesions not belonging to it. But now
the positive demonstrations above so briefly related show to my mind
that the local profession have not been mistaken, and have sustained
their high reputation.
I should say that I have examined a great deal of sputa, but, with the
exception of cases that were malarious, I have not encountered the
mature plants before. Of course I have found them as you did, in my own
excretions as I was traveling over ague bogs.
[_To be continued_.]
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