470 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Hepatic Distomatosis in Man." — P. de Lavergne has added one to 

 the short list of cases in which the presence of the hver-fluke in man 

 has been detected in the life-time of the host. In this case the patient 

 was a soldier invalided from the army with "intermittent fever." 

 Microscopical examination of the faeces revealed the presence of" the 

 eggs of Distomum in considerable numbers. They were much more 

 numerous in pale than in highly coloured fajcal matter, the number 

 apparently varying in inverse ratio to the facility with which bile flowed 

 into the intestines. Clinical symptoms — dysenteric troubles and bad 

 general condition — had shown themselves seven years previously, when 

 the patient was following his ordinary occupation of quarryman, and 

 working in dark, damp tunnels. This fact recalls the observation of 

 Perroncito on the frequent association, in the stools of workers in the 

 St. Gothard tunnel, of the eggs of Dktomum (in one case D. hepaticum) 

 with those of Ankylostonmm. 



F. Mesnil has confirmed M. de liavergne's diagnosis, and adds 

 a note to the effect that, a few days before receiving material from 

 him, he had observed the eggs of a small liver-fluke, Dicrocmlmm 

 Innceatum, which is still rarer in man than the large form. In his case 

 the patient had been for a long time in the Congo, and recently with the 

 forces in German East Africa. 



Echinoderma. 



Increase in Volume of the Nucleus of the Activated Ovum.f — 

 M. Herlant has studied what has been repeatedly described, the con- 

 siderable increase in the volume of the nucleus of the sea-nrchin ovum 

 after activation in cases of artificial parthenogenesis. He has made very 

 careful measurements, chiefly bearing on Strongylocentrotus. These 

 measurements show that the increase occurs in two distinct phases, 

 separated by a period of decrease, a phase of depression. The hypertonic 

 treatment ought to be applied during a phase of increase. During the 

 depression the sensitiveness of the ovum is exaggerated, and leads to the 

 formation of a number of accessory asters, which render effective segmen- 

 tation impossible. Activation is a cyclical phenomenon, whose phases 

 are mutually conditioned and lead on to a mitosis, the success of which 

 depends on the intervention of another factor which has nothing to do 

 with activation. 



New Family of Asteroids. | — W. K. Fisher establishes a new family; 

 Metroderidae, for the puzzling genus MetrocUra. The whole skeleton is 

 overlaid by a rather thin skin partially obscuring the outlines of the 

 plates ; the rays are slender ; the abactinal plates are tesselate, partly 

 imbricated with small spines ; the marginal plates are large ; the actinal 



* C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, Ixxix. (1916) pp. 1098-9. 

 t Comptes Rendus, clxiv. (1916) pp. 412-5. 

 % Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., xx. (1917) pp. 166-72. 



