Beginning with the idea that the cause of muscardine was “environmental” (that is, due to the state of the atmosphere, the food, or the method of breeding), Bassi showed that the condition was due to an “extraneous germ” and concluded that every “spontaneous” outbreak of the disease could be traced to the introduction of infected silkworms or the use of contaminated cages or utensils. Bassi did not formally describe the pathogen. It was later named Botrytis bassiana in his honor and later transferred to Beauveria. The pathogen has a wide distribution and is one of the best-known entomogenous fungi.

Del Mal Del Segno

CHAPTER I

The mark disease, muscardine, calcino, calcinetto, calcinaccio, or cannellino

CHAPTER II

The mark disease, calcinaccio, or muscardine, is a contagious disease. An insect suffering from it, however, cannot communicate it to others so long as it is alive. It becomes contagious when it is dead

CHAPTER III

The mark disease or calcinaccio never arises spontaneously in the silk worm, and the same is true of other insects attacked by that disease

CHAPTER IV

Calcino or the mark disease is always caused by an external organism, which enters the insect and produces the disease, death, and the subsequent hardening and efflorescence of the corpse

CHAPTER V

In what ways the deadly calcino or muscardine germ enters the silk worm establishment and the silk worms, and how it multiplies in them and then spreads all round in large numbers

CHAPTER VI

Causes or circumstances that increase or diminish the virulence or the duration of the muscardine contagion or germ; that facilitate in a greater or a lesser degree its entry into the silk worm and other insects; that favour or hinder its development, its growth, and its reproduction therein, and then its diffusion or dissemination on the various bodies around and in the surrounding air

CHAPTER VII

The muscardine contagion multiplies much more, and wreaks greater havoc amongst the useful insects than other kinds of contagion that afflict animals whose life is much longer or lasts for several years

CHAPTER VIII

Conclusion