PARASITIC ENTOZOA FROM A TOOTH. 171 



It is no uncommon error, which my friend has fallen into, of 

 describing the specimen sent to me as " one of the worms." 

 It is, however, neither a worm nor a maggot, but a veritable 

 embryo of a parasitic entozoa. It belongs undoubtedly to the 

 Trematoda or fluke family, a class of animals well known to 

 infest mankind as well as the lower animals. The puzzle in this 

 case is. How did embryos of the fluke find their way into the 

 patient's decayed tooth ? Probably in one of two ways. In all 

 likelihood the ova of the fluke will have been conveyed into the 

 mouth and stomach by eating tainted or infected animal food, the 

 liver of a sheep suftering from fluke ; or the eggs may have been 

 taken in infected, j^olluted drinking water, more frequently, 

 however, in diseased meat, fish, or fowl, which during the 

 masticatory process is left behind and safely lodged in a hollow 

 tooth or an exposed portion of the alveolar process, there to be 

 retained until more fully developed into the wriggling embryo, 

 which was finally dislodged by the henbane fumigation. It is 

 quite witliin the bounds of possibility that the patient may have 

 unwittingly suffered from ascarides. In such a case, the ova or 

 embryos, during their ordinary larval wanderings in search of a 

 final resting place, which shall prove suitable for their adult 

 condition, might find their way back to the stomach, throat, and 

 mouth of the sufferer. 



No fluke arrives at sexual maturity before passing through a 

 cercarian stage of existence, while its tailed or larval form is 

 usually acquired by passing through an intermediary host, a 

 molluscan, or water animal. It may be a fish. The little water- 

 snail, Limncza triincatula, is undoubtedly the host, in its transition 

 stage, of tlie liver fluke of the sheep, and the amount of these 

 snails, seen at certain periods of the year about marsh lands, in 

 river water, in cisterns, and ponds to which cattle and sheep 

 resort to allay their thirst, is enormous. 



Altogether, five specimens of the dislodged larval flukes were 

 sent to me ; four of them, however, owing to the want of proper 

 precautions for their preservation, were spoilt, being completely 

 covered over by the mycelia of a minute fungus. The cover- 

 glass also of the mounted specimen was broken in the post, so 

 that I heartily wished my medical friend had been a member of 



