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 my ‘Entozoa’ I have stated that probably not less than one hundred
cases have been observed where death had resulted from Cysticerci in the
brain. Griesinger alone collected between fifty and sixty such cases.
Mental disturbance occasioned by the presence of measles in the brain
may occur with or without epilepsy. When Griesinger states that “the
epilepsy from Cysticercus is in all respects like cerebral epilepsy and
the psychical disturbances have nothing characteristic about them,” he
tacitly admits the impossibility of correct diagnosis during life.
Since the publication of Griesinger’s well-known memoir on Cysticerci
of the brain, many similar cases have appeared, and amongst the more
recent of these is one by Dr Frédet in which the victim was a young
man twenty-two years of age. Though apparently in good health he fell
dead in the street; the fatal result being due to the presence of a
Cysticercus within the _pons Varolii_.
Many other cases of earlier date are especially noteworthy. Thus Mr
Toynbee recorded a case where an hydatid (which I take to have been the
_Cysticercus cellulosæ_) situated in the middle cerebral fossa beneath
the _dura mater_, but in this instance death ensued from other causes.
Mr Ottley gives the case of a woman aged forty, where an undoubted
Cysticercus in the brain gave rise to distressing fits, convulsions,
and death. Then, again, there was Dr Burton’s workhouse patient, only
twenty years of age, who was found dead in bed, but who at the time
of admission merely complained of pain in the head. After death, four
hydatids (_Cysticerci_) were found in the _tuber ancillare_ at the
summit of the spinal marrow. M. Bouvier’s similar case is also reported
in our periodicals. Of instances where Cysticerci occupied the cavity
of the eye, we have one or two cases by Mackenzie of Glasgow, one by
Mr Rose of Swaffham, and others by Windsor, Logan, and Estlin. Amongst
the more peculiar cases, I may mention that described by Dr Greenhalgh
in the ‘Lancet’ (1848), where the Cysticercus was lodged within the
substance of the lip. Five similar cases are likewise recorded by Heller
of Stuttgard. Then there is Dupuytren’s case of a Cysticercus ensconced
within the great peroneus muscle; and also Fournier’s, where several of
these scolices were said to have been found in a boil. The so-called
_Trachelocampylus_, discovered by Frédault in the human brain, was
neither more nor less than a common _Cysticercus cellulosæ_.
It is worthy of remark, as Griesinger has also observed, that in cases
where the Cysticerci have taken up their temporary residence in the
brain, they are usually found, post mortem, in the grey cortical or
peripheral substance of the cerebrum. The particulars of such a case are
given in my ‘Entozoa’ where the victim suffered from epileptic fits due
to the presence of numerous Cysticerci (fig. 24). The patient was under
Mr Hulke’s care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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