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
In the year 1865 I conducted a series of experiments upon upwards of
a score of animals, including seven birds, the latter all yielding
only negative results. So far as muscle-Trichinæ were concerned my
experiences accorded with those of Professors H. A. Pagenstecher
and C. J. Fuchs, at the Zoological Institute in Heidelberg. These
experimenters found that the ingested muscle-Trichinæ acquired sexual
maturity within the intestinal canal of their avian “hosts;” but
they never found young Trichinæ in the muscles of the birds, nor did
they perceive any evidences of an attempt on the part of the escaped
embryos to effect a wandering or active migration on their own account.
Clearly, if the bird’s intestinal canal were a proper territory for the
residence of sexually mature Trichinæ, we should have found abundance
of wandering non-encapsuled flesh-worms and also sexually-immature
muscle-Trichinæ enclosed in well-formed capsules. Not a few persons
still entertain the notion that Trichinæ are liable to infest all kinds
of warm-blooded, and even also many kinds of cold-blooded animals, such
as reptiles and fishes. Certain nematodes found in earth-worms have
been described as Trichinæ; and consequently, pigs and hedgehogs were
said to become trichinous through eating these annelids. The minute
flesh-worms described by Bowman from the muscle of the eel are not true
Trichinæ, any more than the somewhat similar parasites which Eberth
found to infest the muscles of the frog. The same may also be said of Dr
Salisbury’s urinary Trichinæ, which are the larvæ of _Filaria Bancrofti_.
Deducting the seven birds, and also six other animals where no
examination after death was possible, I ascertained the result of
my worm-feedings in sixteen instances. Nine of the experiments were
entirely successful, the infected animals comprising four dogs, two
cats, one pig, one guinea-pig, and a hedgehog.
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