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
Carnivorous mammals, especially those subsisting on a mixed diet, are
the most liable to entertain Trichinæ, but it is quite possible to rear
them in herbivora. Thus, Pagenstecher and Fuchs succeeded in rearing
muscle-Trichinæ in a calf, and they found three female intestinal
Trichinæ in a goat, but apparently no muscle-flesh-worms, although
twenty-seven days had elapsed since the first feeding with trichinised
rabbit’s flesh. In three sheep on which I experimented no trace of
Trichinæ could be found. There is no practical need for any further
experiments on herbivora, for it is quite clear that, in their natural
state, herbivorous mammals can seldom have an opportunity of infesting
themselves, whilst the reverse is the case with swine, carnivorous
mammals, and ourselves. Because many quadrupeds become trichinous, it
does not follow that all mammals are liable to be infested. In the case
of most parasites we find the species limited to a larger or smaller
number of hosts. On the other hand, in not a few cases, the range of the
entozoon is limited to a single territory or host.
In conducting the experiments above mentioned I was assisted by
Professors Simonds and Pritchard, of the Royal Veterinary College. As
they were the only researches conducted on any considerable scale in
England, I subjoin a few details of them. Dr Thudichum’s experiments
were, I believe, confined to rabbits.
_Exps._ 1 and 2.--On the 15th of March, 1865, an ounce of flesh
containing Trichinæ was administered by myself to a black bitch. The
dog being destroyed five days subsequently, neither intestinal nor
muscle-Trichinæ were discovered. It was thought that the dog had thrown
up the bolus, which was strongly saturated with chloride-of-zinc
solution. The bolus consisted of a portion of the _pectoralis major_
of a subject brought to the dissecting-room at the Middlesex Hospital.
The cysts were highly calcified, but the majority contained living
embryos, which were quite unaffected by the zinc solution injected into
the body to prevent decomposition. At the same date a small white puppy
was experimented on and examined with precisely the same results. In
either case it was too early to expect muscle-flesh-worms to have become
developed.
_Exp._ 3.--Half an ounce of the same trichinous human flesh was given
(at the same date) to a black-and-tan puppy reared at the Royal
Veterinary College, a second “feeding” being administered on the 21st of
March, or six days after the first. In this case Mr Pritchard, who fed
the animal, took the precaution to chop the muscle into small pieces,
and to mix it with other food, in order that the flesh might be the more
readily retained in the stomach. The puppy was not destroyed until the
15th of the following June, when, on examination, numerous encysted but
non-calcified muscle-Trichinæ were found in all the voluntary muscles
subjected to microscopic scrutiny.
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