The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
The _sexual multiplication_ is accompanied by shedding of all the
foreign bodies and of the degenerating nucleus. The protoplasm, now
contracting into a sphere, remains behind in the shell with the
chromidial mass. From the latter several new nuclei arise (sexual
nuclei) often eight in number. The cytoplasmic sphere then segregates
into as many spherical portions as there are nuclei present. When
they have assumed an oval form, two flagella develop at one pole
and the flagellispores swarm out of the shell.[35] The biflagellate
swarm-spores, or gametes, copulate in pairs and apparently the
individuals of the pairs of gametes arise from different mother
organisms. The zygote secretes a thick covering which soon becomes
brown and rough. These zygote cysts or resistant spores must now pass
from the intestine of an animal in order to complete their development.
The escape of the cyst contents does not always take place in the
intestine; often it does not occur until after defæcation. These
shell-less individuals (amœbulæ) soon become invested with a shell. But
in the alkaline intestinal contents, shell formation may proceed even
while the organism is in the intestine, and multiplication may take
place.
[35] Schaudinn (1903), _Arb. a. d. Kaiserl. Gesundh._, xix, p. 547.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--_Chlamydophrys enchelys_, encysted; on the
left the old capsule. × 760. (After Cienkowski.)]
Schaudinn’s further communication was of special interest; it was to
the effect that _Chlamydophrys_ was related to
*Leydenia gemmipara*, Schaudinn, 1896.
In the fluid removed by puncture from two patients suffering from
ascites in the first medical clinic in Berlin, cellular bodies with
spontaneous movement were found, which Leyden and Schaudinn regard as
distinct organisms. They remained alive without the use of the warm
stage for four or five hours, the external temperature being 24° to
25° C. In a quiescent condition they were of a spherical or irregular
polygonal form. Their surface was rarely smooth, being beset with
protuberances and excrescences (fig. 15). The substance of the body
was thickly permeated with light refractile granules with a yellowish
shimmer. The hyaline ectoplasm was rarely seen distinctly. All sizes
from 3 µ to 36 µ in diameter were observed. The movements were rather
sluggish, the ectoplasm in the meantime appearing in the form of one
or several lamellæ, in which also strings of the granular endoplasm
occurred, and frequently protruded over the border of the hyaline
pseudopodia. The tendency for the joining of several individuals by
means of their pseudopodia was so marked that associations ensued
similar to those known in free-living Rhizopoda.
The cytoplasm enclosed blood corpuscles as well as numerous vacuoles,
one of which pulsated slowly about every quarter of an hour. A
vesicular nucleus the diameter of which was about equal to one-fifth of
the body was present.
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