The study of the chemistry (_chemotaxis_) of bacteria has, however, greatly enlarged our conception of the chemical value and power of the vegetable cell, while it is obvious that no more appropriate or remunerative field of study could engage the attention of the microscopist, as well as the chemist, than that of bacterial life, and which is so well calculated to enlarge our views of created organisms, whether belonging to the vegetable or animal kingdom. Pathogenic Fungi and Moulds. It is scarcely necessary to go back to the history of the parasitic fungi to which diseases of various kinds were early attributable. The rude microscopes of two and a half centuries ago revealed the simple fact that all decomposable substances swarmed with countless multitudes of organisms, invisible to ordinary vision. Leuwenhoek, the father of microscopy, and whose researches were generally known and accepted in 1675, tells of his discovery of extremely minute organisms in rain-water, in vegetable infusions, in saliva, and in scrapings from the teeth; further, he differentiated these living organisms by their size and form, and illustrated them by means of woodcuts; and there can be no doubt that his figures are intended to represent leptothrix filaments, vibrios, and spirilla. In other of his writings attempts are made to give an idea of the size of these “animalcules”; he described them as _a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand_. From his investigations a belief sprung up that malaria was produced by “animalcules,” and that the plague which visited Toulon and Marseilles in 1721 arose from a similar cause. Somewhat later on the natural history of micro-organisms was more diligently studied, and with increasing interest. Müller, in 1786, pointed out that they had been too much given to occupy themselves in finding new organisms, he therefore devoted himself to the study of their forms and biological characters, and it was on such data he based a classification. Thus the scientific knowledge gained of these minute bodies was considerably advanced, and the subject now entered upon a new phase: the origin of micro-organisms. It further resolved itself into two rival theories--spontaneous generation, and development from pre-existing germs--the discussion over which lasted more than a century. Indeed, it only ended in 1871, when the originator of the Abiogenesis theory withdrew from the contest, and the more scientific investigations of Pasteur (1861) found general acceptance. This indefatigable worker had been investigating fermentation, and studying the so-called diseases of wines and a contagious disease which was committing ravages among silkworms. Pasteur in time was able to confirm the belief that the “muscadine disease” of silkworms was due to the presence of micro-organisms, discernible only by the microscope. The oval, shining bodies in the moth, worm, and eggs had been previously observed and