Entozoon infesting the Muscles of tlie Human Body, 453 



The muscles of bodies dissected at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital 

 had been more than once noticed by Mr. Wormald, the Demonstrator 

 of Anatomy at that establishment, to be beset with minute whitish 

 specks ; and this appearance having been again remarked in that of 

 an Italian, aged 45, by Mr. Paget, a student of the hospital, who 

 suspected it to be produced by minute Entozoa, the suspicion was 

 found to be correct, and Mr. Owen was furnished with portions of 

 the muscles, on which he made the following observations. 



With a lens of an inch /oc«s the white specks are at once seen to 

 be cysts of an elliptical figure, with the extremities in general atte- 

 nuated, elongated, and more opake than the body (or intermediate 

 part) of the cyst, which is sufficiently transparent to show that it con- 

 tains a minute coiled-up worm. On separating the muscular fasci- 

 culi, the cysts are found to adhere to the surrounding cellular sub- 

 stance by the whole of their external surface, somewhat laxly at the 

 middle dilated part, but more strongly by means of their elongated 

 extremities. When placed on a micrometer, they measure ^Vth of an 

 inch in their longitudinal and xwth of an inch in their transverse di- 

 ameter, a few being somewhat larger, and others diminishing in size 

 to about one half of the above dimensions. They are generally placed 

 in single rows, parallel to the muscular fibres, at distances varying 

 from ■^ a line to a line apart ; but sometimes a larger and a smaller 

 cyst are seen attached together by one of their extremities, and they 

 are occasionally observed slightly overlapping each other. 



If a thin portion of muscle be dried and placed in Canada balsam, 

 between a plate of glass and a plate of talc, the cysts become more 

 transparent, and allow of the contained worm being more plainly seen. 

 Under a lens of \he focus of ^ an inch, the worm appears to occupy 

 a circumscribed space of a less elongated and more regularly ellipti- 

 cal form than the external cyst, as if within a smaller cyst contained 

 in the larger : it does not occupy more than a third part of the inner^ 

 space. A few of the cysts have been seen to contain two distinct 

 worms ; and Mr. Farr, who has paid much attention to the subject, 

 exhibited a drawing of one of the cysts from this subject, containing 

 three distinct worms, all of nearly equal size. Occasionally the tip 

 of one of the extremities of the cyst is observed to be dilated and ^ 

 transparent, as though a portion of the larger cyst were about to be 

 separated by a process of gemmation ; and these small attached cysts 

 are seen of dififerent sizes, and, as it were, in different stages of growth. 

 This appearance, however, Mr. Owen conceives to be explicable with- 

 out a reference of a power of independent vitality to either of the 

 adherent cysts. The cysts are composed of condensed and compacted 

 lamella of cellular tissue ; but a few are hardened by the deposition 

 of some earthy salt, so as to resist the knife and to produce a gritty 

 sensation when broken under pressure. 



When removed from the interior of the cyst, which, on account of 

 the minuteness of the object, is a matter of some difficulty, the worm 

 is usually found to be disposed in two or two-and-a-half spiral coils. 

 When straightened it measures from -jVth to -sVth of an inch in length, 

 and from yi^^th to ^iryth. of an inch in <3iamcter : a high magnifying 



