TO'RULA CEREVISI1E, or the YEAST-PLANT, is one of those fungi which arc con nected with the process of fermentation. The general history of this fungus will be noticed iu the article YEAST, and we shall here only refer to the medicinal bearing of the subject. This plant, which is also known under the name of saccharomyces. mycoderma ceretisice, and cryptococcus fermentum, may be readily observed by examining a little yeast under the microscope, when it will be seen in the form of round or oval corpuscles (cells), varying in diameter from the 800th to the 400th of a line, and many having smaller corpuscles in their interior. They grow by protrusion of gemmules, and ger minate sometimes on one, and sometimes on several spots of the primitive fungus cells. These shoots throwing off new gcmmules, the yeast-plant gradually forms single 01 branching rows of oblong'cells, connected together like beads. This peculiar arrange
ment of the cells, and the fact that they are not acted on by acetic acid, is characteristic of the plant.
This fungus exists in the saccharine urine of diabetes mellitus, after it has been dis charged for 24 hours or longer, and its appearance in urine within a day or two is suf ficient to lead to the suspicion of the presence of sugar. It likewise is of not unfrequeut occurrence in vomited matters and in fecal evacuations; and wherever it is found, it is indicative that the fluid is in a state of saccharine fermentation.
As fungi more or less closely resembling the yeast-plant often occur in non-saccharine urine that has stood for some days, the assumed presence of the '1'. ccrevisim must not be taken as a proof of the presence of sugar, although it affords a strong hint for testing for that substance.