The antiquity of disease / by Roy L. Moodie.

Roy Lee Moodie

Date:: [1923]

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antiquity of disease / by Roy L. Moodie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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and distorted shapes of many lacunae in the carapace of Bothriolepis and Coccosteus. Closer examination under the oil immersion revealed the occurrence of thread molds and bacteria in the almost disrupted lacunar spaces, and since these organisms have never before been noted in the osseous elements of such ancient vertebrates, a brief description will be given of them here. There is a great gap in our knowledge of ancient bacteria, especially between the pre-Cambrian bacteria described by Walcott and the Carboniferous forms described by Renault, so that we know nothing of the occurrence of bacteria in bony material during the early and middle Paleozoic. The occurrence of thread molds (Mycelites ossifragus) in the hard parts of invertebrates and vertebrates, from mollusks to man, has been noted for more than eighty years, and the literature is very extensive. The canals made by the penetrating molds, known as the Canals of Roux or Wedlj have been noted by Kolliker in the hard parts of invertebrates, fossil and recent, by Triepel in recent human bones, by Shaffer in ancient human teeth, by Sonders in a Neolithic skull, by Roux in the skeletal parts of vertebrates, Carboniferous to recent. They have been recently seen in the bony parts of Devonian vertebrates. Doubtless they have a very wide distribu¬ tion, and may be regarded as one of the most ancient types of organisms in existence. There is nothing peculiar in their occurrence in the ancient vertebrates except that their course of growth is modified by the histology of ancient bone. In the absence of definite lamellae, the mycelia often seek out a lacuna, enter it, and growing out along the direction of the brief canaliculi, expand both the lacuna and canaliculi until the entire

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