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
Among the many advances of modern helminthology, the discovery of the
true source of the guinea-worm is not the least important. To the late
M. Fedschenko (the lamented and accomplished Russian traveller, who
lost his life in a snowstorm on the Alps), science stands indebted
for this memorable advance. Fedschenko showed that the embryos of
Dracunculi, after quitting the human host, succeed in effecting an entry
into the bodies of entomostracous crustaceans belonging to the genus
Cyclops. Within these intermediary bearers, after twelve hours’ sojourn,
the embryos undergo a change of skin, attended with subsequent growth.
Here they remain to complete their larval development, which takes place
within a period of five weeks, or, as Fedschenko himself told me, one
month and six days. At length, as perfected larvæ, they are, together
with their crustacean hosts, transmitted to the stomach of the ultimate
or human bearer. It is probable that sexual maturity is next acquired
within the human stomach, copulation following. After this, the females
migrate to the situations in which they are found beneath the skin of
the human bearer, whilst the males perish and pass out with the fæces.
Thus much I gathered from M. Fedschenko himself when he visited this
country, and I possess a sketch of the larvæ made by him at the time
(October 23rd, 1873). One of the figures represents a larva which has
undergone ecdysis, the long and narrow embryonic tail being supplanted
by one which is blunt and forked at the tip. The somatic contents of the
embryo have at the same time differentiated into a complete intestinal
tube, and a constriction marks the junction of the œsophagus with the
stomach. There is also internally an oval-shaped mass of cells near the
centre of the body. These represent the commencement of the reproductive
organs.
What I had gathered from Fedschenko in conversation thus epitomises
that which has since been much more fully stated by Leuckart; and
it is only fair to add that the Russian traveller was led up to his
discovery by the previous investigations of Leuckart respecting the
young of Cucullanus. The Leipsic helminthologist had, indeed, specially
instructed Fedschenko as to the probable source of Dracunculus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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