394 An Examination of the Opinioiis of Bremser and Others 



their habits with that precision and accuracy, so as to lead us ta 

 say they have a spontaneous origin. May not the fermentive 

 process of the liquids in which they are found, be only so far fa- 

 vourable to their existence and maturity, as to develope these ani- 

 mals from the minute ova of other similar beings, and not the ac- 

 tual cause of their formation ? Every analogy drawn from the wide 

 range of animal existence and propagation, is in favour of this lat- 

 ter supposition.* 



The third argument of Bremser is founded on induction drawn 

 from the primitive formation of the animal kingdom. This forma- 

 tion is founded on the following theory. This earth was at first a 

 mass of inorganized matter, in a fluid state, and endued with the 

 spirit of life : first of all, by a process of fermentation, the least per- 

 fect animals sprung into existence, containing in their composition 

 a much greater proportion of matter than of spirit. The more 

 perfect animals followed by a successive fermentation, and last of 

 all man was produced with a proportion of 50 parts of spirit to 50 

 of matter. We are not told how this creative process stopped 

 among the larger and more perfect animals, — how cows, and ele- 

 phants, and men, ceased to spring up out of the fermenting ele- 

 ments, but that it had a termination we take for granted. Not so 

 with regard to the lower grades of being, especially the entozoa 

 and infusoria, they, it seems, still obey the original impulse, and 

 spring spontaneously from fermenting matter. 



To apply this theory to the formation of intestinal worms. Dr. 

 Bremser supposes that by a surplus of nutritive matter in the 

 bowels, — by a sluggish and diseased state of the alimentary canal, 

 or, in short, by a peculiar vermifious diatheses of any cavity or 

 structure of the body, the various species of worms may have a 

 spontaneous origin, and maintains that as the egg is produced by 

 an inherent function of the ovary of the hen, so are the ascarides 

 and cestoides by an inherent function of the intestinal canal, and 

 the Distoma hepaticum by a similar function of the liver. 



To this it may be answered that the ovarium of the hen is a dis- 

 tinct gland or organ, whose peculiar office is to secrete the rudi- 

 ments of the future chick after it has been duly stimulated by the 

 semen of the male. In the intestines there are no such glands or 



• We confess it has always appeared to us extremely doubtful, whether many 

 of the infusory substances, so often described, be really distinct animals, and 

 more particularly the seminal animalcula. There is nothing more fallacious 

 than microscopical investigations of minute objects. Besides, those who have 

 described them most minutely, have set themselves to the task in order to tind 

 means to confirm certain theories with which their fancies were completely pre- 

 occupied. Such was Fray, Needham, Daubenton, Spallanzani, Buffon. Indeed 

 this latter, when he found that as distinct animals they would not suit his pur- 

 pose, viewed them a second time, and found " that they were not animals, but 

 organic moving particles," — that they " moved only for a time in a certain direc- 

 tion, moved without intervals, and when once stationary moved not agaii^." 



