818 Mr Eschricht's Inquiries concerning 



worms. But this opinion was proved to be erroneous. On the 

 contrary, it was proved that all intestinal worms, formed dis- 

 tinct species and families, of peculiar forms and internal struc- 

 ture adapted to their peculiar mode of life, and that they would 

 soon die if expelled from the body. Consequently, it could only 

 be from animal food, itself containing intestinal worms, that 

 these creatures could be introduced. But as regards man, who 

 feeds only on certain parts of animals, especially the flesh, and 

 this never raw, but prepared in a way which would destroy 

 any living being within it, this explanation appeared highly im- 

 probable. With respect to animals feeding upon other ani- 

 mals, the idea might appear more plausible ; but intestinal 

 worms were proved to be found as frequently in herbivorous 

 as in carnivorous animals. They are also met wdth, not only 

 in the interior of the digestive organs, but in other parts of 

 the body, in the cellular membrane (Filaria), the muscles 

 (C^sticercus), the brain (Coenurtis), the blood {Stro7igylus), the 

 lungs (Hamularid)^ the liver (Distomd), the kidneys {Slro^igy- 

 his) ; in fact, not a single part of the body can be deemed free 

 from them ; and, moreover, they are found in new-born and 

 even unborn animals. If such facts alone afford strong argu- 

 ments against the introduction of these animals with the food, 

 the conclusion is strongly corroborated by the observation that 

 the worms in all these different places form distinct species. 

 They are in general different in each animal, and in each or- 

 ganic system of each animal, so that the Fauna Helminthica 

 may be deemed more extensive than all the other living fauna 

 put together. Attempts have been made to explain how they 

 might have descended from parents to their young before 

 the birth of the latter, and how their ova might be carried 

 along by the circulating blood, &c. ; but all these explanations 

 had no observations to rest upon, and seemed so contrary 

 to our physiological knowledge, that they afforded abundant 

 opportunity for the witty sarcasm of the facetious Dr Bremser, 

 in the first chapter of his *' Lebende JVurmer in lehenden Miti- 

 schen" Thus, in Germany, the theory of equivocal gene- 

 ration was generally embraced, not only by those inclined to 

 mysticism and romance, but even by the more severe and ju- 

 tlicious explorers of nature ; and it was founded not soleh on 



