| # MICRO-FUNGI: WHEN AND WHERE TO FIND THEM by ## Thomas Brittain 1882

## JANUARY IF there be any one branch of botanical study more likely than another to attract the special attention of the student of microscopy, it is the study of the minute fungi. Wherever his home may be, they come around him from month to month on all sorts of decaying or dead organisms - animal and vegetable. They float in the ponds and ditches, and their invisible spores are carried through the atmosphere in every possible direction, even along our streets and into our dwellings, especially our cellars. Most of these decompose for want of the required nidus, but countless thousands are developed into active vitality, and bring into existence most beautiful organisms. Now in this dead time of winter we have them in all damp places around our homes, often on the bread we eat and in the water we drink, on our cheese, and if we eat the tinned meats our cousins send us from Australia we may find the fungus there, in the shape of a hateful white patch. If we scan with careful eye our window panes we may find house flies who have sought out quiet corners where they might die, and there upon their dead remains we find a mass of minute white threads which are the filaments of a well-known and interesting fungus. Amongst what may be called the domestic fungi, we have that still worse family pest the ring-worm; no worm or any other animal, but a bona-fide plant, well-known and identified. A scientific friend of mine suffered some years ago from the infliction of this so-called ring-worm in his beard. He caught and tested the structure of the unwelcome visitor, and sent me specimens of its organism, including the spores. My friend, Mr. Tozer, the head of the fire department of our Manchester Corporation, a year or two ago sent me specimens of the ring-worm which had got upon many of his horses, and was breaking up the hairs into strange fractions of diverging fibres. Doubtless many of the diseases we suffer from have their origin in fungoid life, as yet only suspected, but may some day be known and eradicated. Already science has done much in this direction, but a wide field still remains to be investigated. The Sarcina ventriculi, a so-called fungus when I began microscopic study, but now looked upon as a Confervoid Alga, has played sad havoc with the human stomach. It is but recently that this little vegetable monster has been known, and even now it is a difficulty and a puzzle to the medical student. So during all the centuries of man's existence it has been doing its deadly work in the dark, disordering his vital functions, and doubtless abbreviating his span of life. I remember a certain shoemaker in Sheffield, who some 30 years ago, was a sufferer from this pest unknowingly for a considerable period, and who was greatly reduced from being a very stout man to pitiful thinness, when a microscopist and a personal friend examined the fluid the shoemaker vomited, in which he at once detected the Sarcina, and he told the sufferer that he had got the Sarcina ventriculi in his stomach. The poor fellow was horrified, thinking it must be some huge monster. Explanation followed, and the proper medicine soon destroyed the unwelcome guest. From what I have said it will be seen that the study of the minute fungi is not only a pleasant occupation, and a matter of general scientific interest, but it is in a certain sense a duty we are bound to fulfil in our own interest, and for our personal protection and the public good. Before leaving this department of study let me refer to the Ergot of Rye, a minute fungus of the genus Claviceps. This taken in household bread has been known to produce the most fearful results, upon the details of which it is not desirable that I should dwell. It is not for the medical student, but rather for what may be called the botanical student, that I write, that I may aid him in those studies which will be to him a pleasure rather than a profession. About this time of the year, with the prospect of spring before him, the student will be thinking of the leaf fungi, which are not yet nor can they come for some two or three months, but numerous others are to be found in woods and meadows, and elsewhere in places innumerable. I hope to have an opportunity next month of calling the attention of the student to some of these, in the meantime I may not inappropriately conclude by quoting the well-known inscription on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, "Si monumentum quaeris circumspice," for truly monuments of nature's handy work are all around him. In concluding this paper for January it may be well to allude more specifically to some of the domestic pests which I referred to above. The too common one on bread is known as Ascophora mucedo, and will be familiar to every student of microscopy. This is the only species we have of that genus. Then we have the Mucors, of which many species are well-known. Mucor mucedo on fruit, preserves, &c. M. clavatus on decayed fruit, as also Mucor amethysteus, which is the especial fungus of rotting pears. Then we have Mucor caninus, of the dung of cats and dogs, and numerous others, which I must leave to another occasion, through space at my command being fully occupied. Pages from The Northern Microscopist No. 1 January 1882

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