157 



an inch in its long diameter — say a millimetre. Its presence in the feline 

 stomach is by no means harmless, inasmuch as it gives rise to increased 

 vascularity, and even also to ecchymosi3 of the mncous membrane. 



Unlike Trichina, the Ohdanvs carries only a few young in its interior; 

 three being the average number of embryos pi'esent. However, in relation 

 to the size of the parent worm, these embryos, as Leuckart phrases it, are 

 truly colossal. They are nearly one-third of the length of the parent, 

 being ^ of an inch long by 1 ^ 6 € " in breadth. 



The small number of embryos does not, however, imply a feeble amount of 

 germ-distribution. The swarming of the young within the tissues of the 

 cat-host is sometimes prodigious in extent. Of the embryos that are 

 hatched and discharged, a large proportion, perhaps the greater number, 

 proceed at once to migrate on their own account, and in a direct manner 

 within the tissues of the cat without waiting to be expelled along with 

 the fasces in the ordinary way. I regard this phenomenon as an instance of 

 illegitimate wandering from the right path, a spurious phase of migration, 

 or, as Von. Siebold so aptly expressed himself concerning similar wander- 

 ings long ago, instances of " straying." In this way the young Olulani 

 stray into the liver, into the diaphragm, into the pleura?, and into the sub- 

 stance of the lungs. Within one or other of these organs they come to a state 

 of rest and proceed at once to encyst themselves. If the swarming is 

 extensive and complete their habit of thus straying from the right path 

 necessarily involves both themselves and their victim in one common ruin. 

 As regards those offspring that are carried passively along the legitimate 

 path, their passage per vias naturales ensures for at least a certain number 

 of them a more prolonged existence. Doubtless, as obtains with many 

 Anguillules, the embryos, though dried up within the hardened cat-faaces, 

 revive when, with the excrement nibbled by mice, they are transferred to 

 the stomachs of these rodents. An experiment by Leuckart proved that 

 ingested embryos of Olulanns are not destroyed by their entry into the 

 stomach and intestines of the mouse. In short, not a shadow of doubt 

 exists that the embryos thus passively transferred in the ordinary course of 

 nature, undertake a final and legitimate wandering into the voluntary 

 muscles of the little rodent. After the manner of trichinae they bore their 

 way through the tissues, and having selected the muscles as their final 

 resting place, they proceed to encyst themselves in the same way that some 

 of their fellow-embryos had done before them within the lungs of the feline 

 host. Lastly, in order to arrive at sexual maturity as their parents did 

 before them, they must, as encysted muscle-worms, be passively transferx-ed 

 to the stomach of another cat, where, probably after a few days, or, it may 

 be, only a few hours, they are able to acquire the adult condition. 



Such is the life-record of Olulanus tricuspis. The trichinosis of swine 

 and other warm-blooded animals is the precise pathological homologue of 

 the flesh-worm disease of mice. To this disorder I initiated and long ago 

 applied the term Olulanosis. 



Pathologically speaking, our little nematode is thus capable of producing 

 three distinct morbid states. In adult life it is productive of verminous 

 Journ. Q. M. C, Series II., No. 12. n 



