ABSTRACT
The genus of moulds known as Aspergillus has always been a factor in man's environment. Considerable interest had developed by the middle of the nineteenth century when the Aspergilli began to be recognised as active agents in processes of decay, as fermenting agents capable of producing valuable metabolic products, and significantly as causes of human and animal disease. In 1926, C. Thom and M. B. Church attempted to put together all available material in the now obsolete monograph, The Aspergilli. Thom and K. B. Raper emphasised the need for broadening the application of the name Aspergillus to include organisms whose structures point to close natural relationship. The general term Aspergillosis embraces all infections caused by the aspergini, but is usually restricted to the respiratory disease in man and animals. There are always difficulties in specifically relating particular species of Aspergillus to actual clinical disease outbreaks because of the ubiquity of the orga.
