Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the EctozoaCobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Science
Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the Ectozoa
Cobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Helminths; Parasites
The appearance of hydatids varies very much according to their mode
of formation, to the kind of host in which they are present, and to
the character of the organs in which they happen to take up their
residence. The so-called exogenous type occurs sparingly in man, whilst
the endogenous type is very abundant. The peculiar form known as the
multilocular echinococcus is probably a mere variety of the exogenous
type. The exogenous and endogenous hydatids may coexist in the same
bearer. In the lower animals we commonly find the organs of the body
occupied by numerous lobulated cysts, varying in size from a walnut to
a goose’s egg, but sometimes rather larger. They are rarely solitary,
being particularly liable to occupy both the liver and lungs in the same
animal. The viscera are sometimes crowded with cysts. The hydatids do
not usually protrude much beyond the surface of the infested organ, but
lie imbedded within its parenchymatous substance.
The multilocular variety was first described by Virchow. In reference to
it Leuckart writes as follows:
“Hitherto we know this growth only from the liver, in which it forms a
firm, solid, and tolerably rounded mass of the size of the fist or even
of a child’s head. At first sight it looks more like a pseudoplasm than
a living animal parasite. If you cut through the tumour, you recognise
in its interior numerous small caverns, mostly of irregular shape, and
separated from one another by bundles of connective tissue, more or less
thick, and including a tolerably transparent jelly-like substance. In
the intervening stroma a blood-vessel or a collapsed bile-duct runs here
and there; but there is nowhere any trace of true liver substance. The
outer boundaries of the tumour are in most cases pretty well defined,
so that the attempt to cut these growths out is not difficult. In
particular spots, especially at the surface, one sometimes sees white,
moniliform, jointed lines passing off from the tumour, and even thicker
terminations which, perhaps, expand in the neighbouring liver-parenchyme
into new (multilocular) groups of different size. In one case, recorded
by Virchow, the growth extended, together with Glisson’s capsule, a
long way towards the intestine.” To this description it may be added,
that the growth on section presents an appearance not altogether unlike
alveolar colloid, having, in point of fact, been confounded with that
pathological product, with which, however, as stated by Virchow, it has
nothing in common. This is proved not only by the occurrence of the
pathological features above mentioned, but also, more particularly,
by the well-ascertained presence of echinococcus-heads in most of the
so-called alveoli. Several hypotheses have been broached with the view
of explaining the mode in which these multilocular hydatid growths are
formed. Virchow thought that the echinococcus vesicles were primarily
formed in the lymphatic vessels, whilst Schröder van der Kolk supposed
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