Fungoid Conditions of the Lung—Part I

The primary object of this paper is to record a lung condition occurring amongst the farming community of South Cumberland, the Lake District and Westmorland, which Munro Campbell, Faulds and myself believe to be due to the inhalation of dust-born fungi, and accordingly a broncho-mycosis, for which I have coined the name broncho-mycosis feniseciorum (of haymakers or harvesters). This work has necessitated the investigation of much of the recorded work on other types of broncho-mycoses, and some are briefly described, together with my own observations. In a paper such as this, it is impossible to describe fully the morphological characteristics, classification, life-history, etc., of fungi: Much has been written on the subject, and reference should be made to the more recent works, namely those of Bodin,1 Brumpt,2 Castellani.3 Castellani and Chalmers,4 Gedoelst,5 Gueguen,6 Jacobson,7 Muir and Ritchie,8 Ramsbottom,9 Saccardo,10 Sartory,11 Thom,12 Thom and Church,13 and many others. Briefly, the science of mycology dates back to the year 1677, when Hooke discovered that the yellow spots found on the leaves of roses consisted of filamentous fungi; but it was not until 1839, when Langenbeck discovered the oidium albicans—the fungus of thrush and found it to be parasitic to man, that the medical profession recognised the incidence of fungous diseases. Largely owing to the discoveries of Pasteur and Koch in the realms of bacteriology, the science of mycology fell somewhat into abeyance. This was only a temporary matter, as by the end of 1906 Saccardo10 and his co-workers in Italy published a Sylloge Fungorum containing 57,660 fungi.