38 QUARTERLY CHRONICLE. 



Amongst the animals (-which other observers say are in- 

 habited by psorospermian vesicles) the author has found 

 them in the deer, ox, mouse, rat, and pig, but never in the 

 human body. He always found them inhabiting the trans- 

 versely-striped miiscles, and in no other organ or texture. 

 They are, like the Trichin, found in great numbers at 

 the commencement of the tendon of the muscle. If in large 

 numbers, they arc found in almost every muscle of the animal, 

 ft is also to be remarked that where they are few and small, 

 they occur chiefly in the peritoneal covering and the regions 

 about the stomach. According to the size of the vesicles so 

 is the number ; where they are few they are small — from a 

 quarter to one line in length ; and where numerous, larger, 

 even two inches long. As to the exact time of year 

 of their appearance the author is uncertain, for he was not 

 able to carry on his observations during a whole year. He can 

 only say that in the early months of last year he examined a 

 great many animals, and found ninnbers of the cysts both in 

 rats and pigs, whereas in the following summer until August 

 he found none ; but from August to October they appeared 

 again, though only of the small or very smallest size. To 

 prove the manner in which these parasites are communicated, 

 he made numerous experiments, placing them in wet earth, 

 in sugar-water, and leaving the flesh in which they were 

 found to putrify or to dry ; but in all these experiments the 

 sacculi perished, or rather the contents, which underwent a 

 sort of granular disintegration, usually even before the mus- 

 cular structure itself had disappeared. He then tried feeding- 

 different animals on flesh which contained them, but when 

 these were opened he simply found remains of the vesicles in 

 the stomach, but no trace of them in the muscles. 



Although these results were all negative, and although he 

 lias not met with any of the granular bodies in the flesh of 

 the heart, which Hessling believes to be the young stage, the 

 author thinks that the different sacculi, which are found in 

 various animals, simply indicate degrees of age, which arc 

 distinguished by the absence of cilia and the comjDarative 

 abundance of the spherical or of the reniform corpuscles. 



Since he has ascertained from direct observation that the 

 reniform or fusiform corpvisclcs are developed in the spherical 

 cells above noticed, from Avhich they are subsequently 

 liberated, and, moreover, since in the sacculi of the smallest 

 size only these s^jherical cells Avith uniform granular contents 

 are met with, there can be no doubt that those saccnVi, in which 

 the spherical cells predominate, are younger than those contain- 

 ing the fusiform corpuscles. But it is precisely the sacculi, 

 jU the former condition, which are almost invariably furnished 



