468 ORDER CILIO-FLAGELLATA. 



secretion of innumerable vibrio-like bodies, not observable at other times ; these 

 were readily destroyed and the hay-fever symptoms cured by administration three 

 times daily, with a nose-douche, of weak solution (i'8oo) of sulphate of quinine. 

 The best effects were obtained through applying the solution in a tepid form. 



The manner in which Asthmatos ciliaris reproduces its kind is, in accordance 

 with Dr. Salisbury's account, somewhat remarkable. A single young one at a 

 time is, he relates, developed inside the parent, and is when mature discharged 

 posteriorly through the body-wall of the latter. His woodcut illustration of this 

 liberation of the newly formed animalcule, reproduced at PI. XXIV. Fig. 64, 

 would seem, however, to represent an instance of ordinary transverse fission similar 

 to that exhibited by Halteria or Strombidium, and in which the body, becoming 

 elongate, is constricted centrally, the constriction being accompanied by the growth 

 of a new circlet of cilia. The newly produced zooids are described as being much 

 more active than the older ones, rolling from side to side in an oscillating manner, 

 while the movements of the parents are chiefly tremulous or vibratory. 



So recently as November 1880, the author's attention has been directed by 

 Dr. Joseph Leidy to a communication concerning this singular organism contri- 

 buted by him to the ' American Journal of Medical Science,' p. 85, for the year 

 1879. In this communication the claim of Asthmatos for recognition as an 

 independent protozoic structure is not admitted, Dr. Leidy expressing himself 

 satisfied that the so-called animalcules, as first described by Dr. Salisbury, represent 

 merely detached ciliated epithelial cells from the air-passages, more or less modified 

 by the catarrhal affection. This decision he arrives at not merely from an 

 analysis of Dr. Salisbury's description and accompanying figures, but having 

 been himself affected by an autumn catarrh for many years through an intimate 

 acquaintance with an apparently identical organism produced abundantly in his 

 own person, which he unhesitatingly identifies with ordinary or more or less 

 deformed ciliated epithelial cells. While the evidence submitted by Dr. Leidy 

 is here accepted as strongly supporting this epithelial interpretation, one or two 

 points connected with Dr. Salisbury's original description of Asthmatos leave room 

 for justifiable doubts as to whether or not two distinct organisms have been 

 examined by these respective observers. Thus, the production of young from the 

 parent's body, or, as it is here interpreted, the phenomenon of transverse fission 

 accompanied by the development of a posterior ciliary circlet, recorded by 

 Dr. Salisbury, is altogether at variance with the ordinary comportment of detached 

 epithelial cells; added to which it must be observed that in none of the numerous 

 figures given by Dr. Leidy is any indication given of the so-called proboscis or 

 flagellate appendage which constituted an essential feature of the innumerable 

 examples examined by Salisbury. It may be further mentioned, that reference is 

 made by Dr. Leidy to a communication, entitled ' Rhizopods (Asthmatos ciliaris} a 

 cause of Disease,' published by Dr. Ephraim Cutter, of Boston, in the ' Virginia 

 Medical Monthly' for November 1878, and in which this last-named authority 

 having, in company wth Professor P. F. Reinsch of Erlangen, examined numberless 

 examples, arrives at the conclusion that the organism is a Protozoon allied to 

 Actinophrys, referring the more precise identification of its nature and position to 

 Dr. Leidy. That infusorial animalcules exist which correspond in all essential 

 points with the isolated cellular elements of ciliated epithelium, is abundantly 

 manifested in such isomorphic types as Magosphczra planula and Lophomonas 

 blattarum, which forms again, excepting for the presence of the more ordi- 

 narily developed flagellate appendage, the Asthmatos ciliaris of Dr. Salisbury closely 

 resembles. 



Fam. V. TRICHONEMIDJE, S. K. 



Animalcules free-swimming, bearing a single terminal flagellum, the 

 remainder of the cuticular surface more or less completely clothed with 

 cilia. 



