The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
Part of this hypothetical cycle of development was erroneous, and
in other particulars positive observation was lacking, but the path
pursued was in the right direction. Immediately after the appearance of
Steenstrup’s celebrated work, v. Siebold expressed his opinion that the
encapsuled flukes certainly had to travel, _i.e._, to be transmitted
with their bearers into other hosts, before becoming mature. This view
was experimentally confirmed by de Filippi, La Valette St. George
(1855), as well as by Pagenstecher (1857), while the metamorphosis of
the ciliated embryo of Distoma into a germinal tube was first seen by
G. Wagener (1857) in _Gorgodera_ (_Distoma_) _cygnoides_ of frogs.
All that we have subsequently learned from the works of numerous
investigators about the development of endoparasitic trematodes has
certainly increased our knowledge in various directions, and, apart
from the deviating development of the _Holostomidæ_ has, as a whole,
confirmed the briefly sketched cycle of development.
Steenstrup’s work on the cestodes did not attract the same attention
as his work on trematodes. Steenstrup always insisted on the “nurse”
nature of the cysticerci and other bladder-worms. Abildgaard (1790), as
well as Creplin (1829 and 1839), had already furnished the information
that certain sexless cestodes (_Schistocephalus_ and _Ligula_) from
the abdomen of fishes only become mature after their transference
to the intestine of aquatic birds. These passive migrations were
confirmed in an entire series of other cestodes, particularly by v.
Siebold (1844, 1848, 1850) and E. J. van Beneden (1849), not by actual
experiment, but by undoubted observation.
It was correctly believed that the ova or oncospheres penetrate into
certain intermediate hosts, in which they develop into unsegmented
larvæ. Here they remain until, with their host, they are swallowed by
some predacious animal. They then reach the intestine, being freed from
the surrounding membranes through the process of digestion, and settle
themselves there to form the adult chain of proglottides. Though some
few scientists, such as P. J. van Beneden and Em. Blanchard, deduced
from these observations that the bladder-worms (Cysticerci), which had
hitherto been regarded as a separate class of helminthes, were only
larval Tæniæ, this correct view was not at first universally accepted.
The foundation was too slight, and van Beneden was of opinion that the
Cysticerci were not necessary, but only appeared incidentally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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