NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
Medical Officers of the Army of India.
9
Immediate examinations were made of the subcutaneous effusion, the peri
-toneal secretion, the cardiac blood, and the intestinal contents. The subcutane
- o u s e f f u s i o n w a s f u l l o f c h a r a c t e r i s t i c c o m m a s . T h e p e r i t o n e a l s e c r e t i o n w a s
also crowded with them. Many of them here were of large size and abnormal
form, many of these being evidently connected with the process of multiplication
by longitudinal division—using this term as applicable to that form of division,
first pointed out by Dr. Klein, in which there is a tendency to the assumption of
a circular figure preparatory to division (vide Plate I, Fig. 4). The cardiac blood
failed to show any recognisable commas.
The contents of the small intestine were crowded with desquamated epithe-
lium in the form of isolated cells and masses of adherent ones. In the fluid from
the ileum commas of characteristic form were present in innumerable numbers,
and so few schizomycetes of any other kind accompanied them that the material
might roughly be described as representing a pure cultivation of commas. In
the contents of the duodenum numerous commas were also present, but they
were here associated with great numbers of large, straight, apparently putrefac-
tive bacilli.
The contents of the cæcum were full of desquamated epithelium and con-
tained numerous characteristic commas as well as larger commatous and
spirilloid bodies similar to those present under normal circumstances.
Cultivations were carried out with the following results :—
1. A tube cultivation of cardiac blood with three distinct punctures gave
a pure crop of commas around each puncture.
2. A tube cultivation of the peritoneal secretion gave a pure crop of
commas.
3, 4. Two plate cultivations of the contents of the ileum yielded practi
- c a l l y p u r e g r o w t h s c o n s i s t i n g o f i n n u m e r a b l e c o l o n i e s o f c o m m a s .
Only one or two colonies of any other kind appeared in either
plate.
Hardened specimens of the liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, and large and
small intestines were subsequently examined. The tissues of the liver, spleen,
kidneys, and lungs were apparently free of invasion by commas or any other
form of schizomycete organisms. Sections of the intestines showed absolute
desquamation of the epithelial stratum (vide Plate I, Figs. 1-2). The subjacent
adenoid tissue appeared to be everywhere completely laid bare, save in one or two
rare instances where the deeper extremity of a tubular gland retained some traces
of epithelium. No accumulation of commas within the adenoid tissue or the deeper
strata could be discovered, and, indeed, hardly any unequivocal commas could be
detected amongst the scattered bacilli which were in some places present in the
substance of the exposed adenoid tissue.
c
Medical Officers of the Army of India.
13
inoculated animals or to special conditions in the material which was introduced
into their system. If the phenomenon were due to any subjective peculiarity in
the animals there was, at all events, no direct evidence of its existence, unless we
are to regard the fact that the exempt animals were somewhat larger than those
in two of the fatal cases and were not pregnant as the animal in the third fatal
case was, as equivalent to this. The actual weights of the animals and the
amount of commatous fluid injected in each case are shown below :—
No. of Experiment.
Result.
Body Weight.
Fluid injected.
1.
Fatal.
482
1 . c . c .
2.
Do.
868
o.5 c. c.
3 .
Nothing
650
.
629
595
1 drop.
.
0.33 c. c.
1 c . c .
4 .
Do.
776
.
700
.
1
c.
c.
1 . c . c .
5.
Fatal.
3 0 0
1 . c . c .
The above figures certainly show that, leaving the case of the pregnant
animal out of consideration, the relative amount of commatous material introduced
at any one time was higher in the animals which suffered than in those which re-
mained exempt. The numbers which have to be dealt with are, however, too few
to form the basis for any definite conclusion, and the matter clearly requires fur-
ther experimental investigation.
In reference to the question of the possible dependence of the exemption on
special quality of the injected material, it must be pointed out primarily that
there certainly could not have been any permanent change or deterioration, for
the two cases of exemption occurred not at the close of the series of experiments,
but between the two first and the last fatal case in which the material employed
belonged to a cultivation of later date than those which failed to exhibit patho-
genic properties. The possibility that the exemption was due to any peculiarity
in the substratum capable either of directly modifying the characters of the bacilli
or of modifying the nature of the decomposition products connected with their
growth, is also excluded by the fact that the substratum connected with the last
fatal case was identical with that related to the two cases of exemption. In
other words, the agar-agar meat-juice gelatine in the cultivations related to the
two cases of exemption and to the last fatal case belonged to one batch of
tubes.
The only hypothesis remaining, then, on the assumption that the ex-
emption was due to peculiarities in the material injected, is that this presented
temporary differences in the two classes of cases—that in those cases where
pathogenic phenomena manifested themselves the bacilli were either more
resistent and adaptible to their new site, or had manufactured special decom-
position products, or specially large amounts of decomposition products favouring
their invasion of the host-organism. In regard to this point also we have un-
fortunately not sufficient data to enable us to arrive at any definite decision.
14
Scientific Memoirs by Medical Officers of the Army of India.
The only phenomenon which was in any way noteworthy in reference to it is that,
in all the cases in which pathogenic results presented themselves, the cultivations
from which the materials for injection were obtained had very conspicuously
passed on into the stage characterised by the occurrence of vacuolation and
other deviations from the normal form in the commas, and that in one, at all
events, of the cases of exemption, the material belonged to a very recent cultiva-
tion in which such phenomena had not begun to manifest themselves.
CALCUTTA ;
The 16th April 1886.
On the Life History of a new Æcidium on Strobilanthes
dalhousianus, Clarke.
BY
SURGEON-MAJOR A. BARCLAY; M.B.,
SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE SANITARY COMMISSIONER WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.
( With Plates II and III. )
I.—General characters of the Æcidium as it occurs on Strobilanthes
dalhousianus, with description of experiments.
For some time past I had endeavoured by numerous experiments to trace
the life history of an æcidium which occurs very abundantly in Simla on
Strobilanthes dalhousianus, CLARKE, a common member here of the Acanthaceæ.
One so abundant appeared to lend itself readily to discovery ; but side by side
with this one so many others were met with on various hosts, and so many
teleutosporic forms were found both on grasses and other plants, that I soon
found myself surrounded by greater difficulties than I had anticipated. I was
especially perplexed by the occurrence of equally common æcidia on Valeriana
Wallichii, D.C., and Urtica parviflora, RoxB. *—plants which are generally found
growing in company with Strobilanthes. It is true that the æcidium on Valeri-
ana does not appear simultaneously with those on the other two hosts, appearing
earlier in the season ; but a short interval only intervenes between its disappear-
ance and the appearance of the remaining two, and even this interval is bridged
over by the occurrence of other æcidia on other plants (notably on the violet and
a species of Umbelliferæ). Moreover, each of these three plants bears teleuto
-sporic pustules long after the æcidium-bearing fungus on it has died out. At
first, then, it appeared probable that these teleutosporic forms were all inter
-related ; but I have now satisfied myself by numerous experiments that they
are not related in any way to the three æcidia above referred to. In another
paper which follows I have described the life history of the Nettle æcidium, so
that that of the Valeriana æcidium alone of the three still remains a mystery.
During the last days of March of the present year, I noticed for the
first time that the dry leaves of Pollinia nuda, TRIN,† produced during the pre
-vious year, and still adherent to their dried stalks, bore numerous teleuto-
sporic pustules. I had come up to Simla earlier in the spring than usual, and
* See another paper which follows.
I am indebted to Mr. Duthie, Superintendent of the Saharanpur Botanical Garden, for the deter-
mination of this grass.
2 0
Scientific Memoirs by
II.—General characters of the fungus as it occurs on Pollinia nuda,
with description of experiments.
Both uredo and teleutospore pustules occur almost exclusively on the under
surfaces of the leaves. The pustules bearing uredo spores are generally smaller
than those which produce teleutospores ; are of a light-brown colour, oval or
shortly linear in form, and burst by a clean longitudinal rent through the epi-
dermis. They do not occur numerously, and, indeed, appear to have become, to
a certain extent, superfluous, for the same leaves which bear a few uredo sori
usually contain more numerous teleutosporic pustules. There is no doubt that
the same mycelium bears both forms of spores, for in each uredo pustule several
teleutospores may be found, and conversely in each teleutospore pustule several
uredospores may always be found. Moreover, the same capitate paraphyses
occur in the beds of both, though more numerously in uredo-beds. The myce-
lium produces little or no discoloration of the leaf tissue. Both forms of spores
are immediately germinable after ripening. The power the teleutospores have
of immediate germination was surprising, as their primary function is no doubt
to preserve the fungus through the winter and to reproduce it in the following
summer. Their ready germination, however, favours the view that uredospores
are not required by this fungus, the teleutospores assuming both a distribu-
tive and a preservative function, though its distributive function is exercised
in a different channel from that employed by uredospores. Some evidence is
given under Experiment XIII to show that this view is not altogether fanciful.
I collected these spores for the first time on the 26th March 1886, and found
that they were then also capable of immediate germination when brought
under suitable conditions, although usually in nature they do not attack Stro-
bilanthes until the end of June or the beginning of July. At this time,—
namely, in early spring,—the dried leaves of the grass may be seen sometimes
to contain immense numbers of these teleutospore beds. They are generally
long, linear, black beds, made up evidently by the coalescence of minute circular
beds which emerge singly in a row, for some such apparently longitudinal beds
when examined under a lens may be seen to consist of these circular beds
which have not coalesced, or have done so incompletely. Moreover, most leaves
exhibit many single isolated minute circular beds. Sometimes several adjacent
longitudinal beds coalesce laterally forming a broad thick bed. These spore beds
exist only, so far as I have as yet observed, on the leaves and never on the
stalks.
In order to prove that this parasitic fungus is on Pollinia produced by the
æcidiospores from Strobilanthes, the following experiments were made. I should
mention that all these experiments were made with æcidiospores obtained from
the artificially-inoculated plants described above, for throughout the whole of
these experiments not a single plant of Strobilanthes became affected in nature,
2
2
Scientific Memoirs by
same glass box, for the plants were protected from external influence. It
might, however, be urged that my protection against-external influence was not
sufficient to exclude Such minute bodies as sporidia. This is true, but as I have
shown that newly-formed teleutospores germinate immediately after ripening, and
t hat t hey are t hen al so ful l y capabl e of at once at t acki ng. St robi l ant hes (Experi ment
X), it is not reasonable to invite a remote cause for the continued attack of the
leaves of this Strobilanthes, when a fully sufficient proximate cause for it lies at
hand. With an increased production of æcidiospores, there resulted also an in-
creased production of teleutospores, until at last, by successive reciprocal attacks,
the leaves both of Strobilanthes and Pollinia presented an immense number of
infected centres far more numerous than ever occurs in nature. Some idea of
the extraordinary propagation of this fungus within the glass box-may be gained
by the following statements. Originally about 30 leaves of this Strobilanthes
plant were inoculated. They produced an abundance of æcidiospores which
falling on Pollinia, produced a first crop of teleutospores. One month later still
the Strobilanthes had grown greatly, throwing out new shoots and leaves. The
whole plant had its leaves sprinkled uniformly over with yellow æcidial patches.
I plucked one small branch of this plant, and of the 63 leaves it bore 58 were
attacked in all stages of development, from commencing attack to final dis-
integration of old affected areas. Two of these- leaves presented over 90
centres of. attack. It was difficult to count the number of centres of attack
on all these 58 leaves, since many centres originally distinct had coalesced,
leaving little or no indication of the number of coalesced centres. But count-
ing-all undoubtedly separate centres of attack, I found that these leaves presented
no fewer than 730 such centres !
Experiment XIV. —A plant in pot was dusted with æcidiospores from
Experiment V on the 4th July, and then kept in my laboratory under a glass
shade. On the 18th I noticed teleutospore pustules on several of them
.
These experiments were so fully successful that I thought it needless to
repeat them, more especially as here, too, all nature acted as a control upon
them, since not only at the time they were made, were old teleutospores of the
preceding year's growth no longer to be found, but the new leaves of the
present year's growth showed no signs of attack by this fungus.
III.—Microscopic characters of the fungus on Strobilanthes
dalhousianus.
A.—On the leaf. —Mycelial filaments of, the usual characters ramify through
the mesophyll cells between the upper and lower epidermis layers ; but whilst
they occur sparingly among the palisade cells, they exist in great profusion among
the cells of the spongy tissue. The palisade cells are indeed, as a rule, not dis-
turbed in arrangement ; and even when ripe æcidia are formed, the bases of these
may be seen pressed against these cells, pushing them aside for about half their
depth, the upper halves remaining in lateral contiguity. The mycelial filaments
are colourless, measure 4 µ in diameter, and for the most part do not penetrate the
mesophyll cells, though occasionally haustoria may be seen within the cells of
the spongy tissue similar in character to those which exist more abundantly in
other tissues, and which will be described below. Affected areas are consider-
ably thickened, but the thickening is due almost entirely to the increased dimen-
sions of the spongy tissue elements, although the palisade cells are also hyper-
trophied to some extent. The average thickness of a normal leaf varies from
about 0.129 m.m. to 0.145 m.m., whilst at invaded parts the thickness averages
from about 0.315 m.m. to 0.340 m.m. The following table will show roughly
the parts taken by the palisade and spongy tissue cells in giving rise to this
thickening :—
Normal leaves,
two measure-
ments.
Leaves affected
to spermo-
gonial stage.
Leaves affected
to æcidial
formation.
Epidermis, upper .
.
.
. . . 22 µ 19 µ
25 µ
2 5 . 2 µ
Palisade cells
• . . .
3 8 µ
69 µ
57 µ
94. 5 µ
Spongy tissue cells .
47 µ 38 µ
208 µ
189. 0 µ
Epidermis, lower .
. 22 µ 19 µ
25 µ
31.5 µ
TOTALS
. . 129 µ 145 µ
315 µ
340.6 µ
B.—On petioles, leaf veins, and stem. —In a young shoot, such as that
represented in figure 8, there are normally about four layers of collenchyma cells
under the epidermis, succeeded by several layers, of thin-walled cortical paren-
chyma cells. The vascular bundles are then encountered, and within these,
centrally, the pith cells. When the shoot is affected, generally mycelial fila-
ments may be seen coursing through all the tissues, excepting the vascular
bundles and the epidermis. The diameter of the filaments here I observed to
be very uniformly about 5 µ. In longitudinal sections the mycelium is seen to
possess a pseudo-scalariform arrangement (fig. II) with strands of hyphæ run-
ing more or less directly up the stem united laterally by short twigs. Although
mycelial filaments do not appear actually to enter the vascular bundles, they
approach them very closely. These filaments are most numerous among the
collenchyma cells, and here they frequently send small twigs into the cells
forming haustoria. These haustoria are usually simple unbranched tubes ending
freely within the cell and without any dilatation ; but in some cases they are
slightly branched (fig. 13). When the petioles and veins of leaves are attacked,
they are usually hypertrophied. In these parts haustoria occur, especially
24
Scientific Memoirs by
within the parenchymatous cells surrounding the vascular bundles (bundle
sheath ?).
C.—The æcidial fructification.—The æcidia are of the usual characters (fig
9). One of average size in a leaf measured 0.315 m.m. in depth and 0.283
m.m. in width. When young and still deep in the tissues, they are surrounded
by a thick-felted pseudo-tissue of convoluted hyphæ ; but later, as the fructifi-
cation ripens and bursts, this covering is confined to the base. The pseudoperi-
dium consists of a single layer of flattened angular cells, measuring on an
aver age 16. 3 x 11. 6 µ ( f i g. 2) . The upper ones have t hei r l onger di amet er s
usually coincident with the long diameter of the æcidium, whilst the lower ones
are usually at right angles to these. These peridial cells are arranged in an imbri-
cate manner, the lower edges of each overlapping the upper edges of those
below.
The hymenium consists of short club-shaped basidia, which do not form a
well-defined level bed as in many cases. Æcidiospores are given off from these
basidia in rows without intercalary cells. The æcidiospores are irregularly round,
or more usually faceted, pale orange-yellow bodies, with deciduous, minute, oval
bodies often adhering to their external surfaces, exactly like those seen in the
æcidiospores of the Nettle aecidium (fig. 10). The spores measure, immediately
after immersion in water, 18 x 16 µ. The epispore is not readily distinguishable
from the endospore, and both together form a thin envelope. They germinate
readily in pure water. Some spores taken from Experiment II were placed in
water in a growing cell on the 10th June, and in twenty-four hours most of them
had thrown out germinal tubes which were simple and unbranched, containing
the colouring matter before within the spore body. The tubes were sometimes
slightly sinuous, but never branched, with an average diameter of 5 µ (fig. 10).
The young æcidia in leaves are laid in the spongy tissue ; in the stem they are
found either beneath the collenchyma cells, between them and the cortical par-
enchyma, or between the collenchyma cells. These young buried æcidia are
usually somewhat flattened from above downwards.
D.—The spermogonia. —The spermogonia exhibit the usual structure. They
have a tuft of hairs or paraphyses at their mouths, measuring about 80 to 90 µ in
length, and 3 µ in diameter at their bases, whilst the base of the whole tuft of
hairs altogether measures 56 µ in diameter. A ripe spermogonium measures
about 100 µ in depth by 94 µ in width. In the leaf they occur both on the upper
and lower surfaces, but more frequently on the upper. In the latter situation
they may be seen apparently replacing several palisade cells, and their bases
extend downwards a little below the lower edge line of the palisade cells. On
the stem they are considerably more superficial than the æcidia lying between
the epidermis and the collenchyma cells.
The spermatia are oval or pyriform bodies, measuring from 5 X 2.5 µ to
6 x 3 µ. Those figured in figure .3 were obtained from a detached leaf de-
scribed in Experiment IX, nine days after inoculation.
26
Scientific Memoirs by
promycelia. The terminal ends of the promycelia containing the granular colour-
less matter divide into four compartments by four transverse septa (figs. 6 and 7),
and from each compartment a sporidium is found at the end of a short pointed
sterigma. Sometimes the sterigmata attained abnormally long dimensions, but
these never, as far as my observation reached, produced sporidia. An exag-
gerated instance of such deformed sterigmata is shown in figure 7. The sporidia
measure from 10 x 6 µ to 12 x 7 µ (figs. 5 and 6). I noticed that when the
germination of the teleutospores was slow in cold weather, the sporidia were
smaller than when germination was quicker in warmer weather. In a cultivation
started on 7th April, when the temperature of the room was about 50° F., sporidia
were formed on the11th, and these measured 10 x 6 µ ; whilst in another cultiva-
tion started on the 9th June, when the temperature of the room was about 65° F.,
germination ensued rapidly, sporidia were found in twenty-four hours, and these
measured 12 x 7µ. The sporidia germinated readily in the usual way by throw-
ing out slender short tubes (fig. 6). I never observed the formation of second-
ary sporidia.
Conclusion. —Two other species of Strobilanthes occur in the neighbourhood
of Simla,—namely, S. alatus, NEES, and S. atropurpureus, NEES ; but although
the former is very common, and may often be found growing side by side with
S. dalhousianus, I never observed the æcidium on either of them. Both S. alatus
and S. dalhousianus harbour a parasitic fungus bearing Uromyces spores during
the autumn, but I have not been able to ascertain either the origin of this fungus
or its future development. It apparently has no connection whatever with the
æcidial fungus just described. This affection is very common indeed on S. alatus ,
and less common on S. dalhousianus . Inoculation experiments made on S. dal-
housianus this year with spores collected the previous autumn were without
result ; but I should also mention that I could not get these spores to germinate
in artificial cultivations.
I propose to call this fungus, which belongs to Winter's group of Hetero-
puccinia (hetercecious species),* Æcidium Strobilanthis, and its diagnostic
characters are as follows :—
Æcidium Strobilanthis, Barclay.
I.—Æcidia usually hypophyllous, borne in clusters on somewhat thick-
ened discoloured areas on leaves, seldom on petioles or young
shoots. Areas greenish yellow to yellow above and pale rosy
or purplish to reddish yellow below ; pseudoperidium cup-shaped
or cylindrical with white stellately split edges. Spermogonia hypo-
and epi-phyllous with tufts of paraphyses around their mouths.
Spermatia oval or pyriform, 5 x 2.5µ to 6 X 3µ Æcidiospores
* " Die Pilze, Deutsch. Oest. u.d. Schweiz." (Rabenhorsts Kryptogamen Flora, I Band.)