plainly marked. It is not rare, however, to see the individual sporangia
perfectly isolated and disembarrassed of their filament of mycelium
floating in the water. It seems to me very probable that these isolated
sporangia are identical with the hyaline coagula so accurately described
by Frerichs, who has observed them in the blood of patients dying of
intermittent fevers. But if two sporangia are observed with their bases
coherent without intermediary filaments of mycelium, it seems to me
probable that the reproduction has taken place through the union, which
happens in the following manner: Two filaments of mycelium become
juxtaposed; after which the filaments of mycelium disappear in the
sporangia newly formed, which by this same metamorphosis are deprived of
the faculty of reproducing themselves through the filaments of myclium
of which they are deprived. The smallest portion of a filament
of mycelium evidently possesses the faculty of producing the new
individuals.

It is unquestionable that the Limnophysalis hyalina enter into the blood
either by the bronchial mucous membrane, by the surface of the pulmonary
vesicles, or by the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal, most often,
no doubt, by the last, with the ingested water; this introduction is
aided by the force of suction and pressure, which facilitates their
absorption. It develops in the glands of Lieberkuhn, and multiplies
itself; after which the individuals, as soon as they are formed, are
drawn out and carried away in the blood of the circulation.

The Limnophysalis hyalina is, in short, a solid body, of an extreme
levity, and endowed with a most delicate organization. It is not a
miasm, in the common signification of the term; it does not carry with
it any poison; it is not vegetable matter in decomposition, but it
flourishes by preference amid the last.