1892.] -»-«?J- IRuschenberger. 



appearance observed in human muscles, probably depending upon llie 

 formation of very small cysticerci. By John Hilton, Demonstrator of 

 Anatomy at Guy's Hospital." 



He states substantially that Procter, aged seventy, was admitted into the 

 hospital for a cancer, and died three months after. "Between the [mus- 

 cular] fibres, and having their long axis parallel to them, are situate 

 several oval bodies, transparent in the middle and opaque at either end, 

 altogether about one-twenty-fifth of an inch in length. No organization 

 could be discovered with the aid of a microscope."* 



At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, February 24, 1835, 

 Mr. Owen read a description of a microscopic Entozoon, infesting the mus- 

 cles of the human body.f 



In the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, Vol. i, pp. 

 315-23, is the same paper, "By Richard Owen, Assistant Conservator of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons in London," with a plate. In that paper 

 Mr. Owen states in substance that Mr. Paget, an intelligent student at 

 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, observed that muscles of the body of an 

 Italian barometer-maker, who died January 29, 1835, aged fifty, were beset 

 with minute whitish specs," and that Mr. Paget, aided by Mr. Brown and 

 ]Mr. John Bennet, at the British Museum, at the same time satisfactorily 

 determined the existence of the entozoon. 



Mr. Wormald, Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. Bartholomew's Hos- 

 pital, stated that he had noticed more than once the same condition during 

 previous anatomical seasons, and at the request of Mr. Owen, soon fur- 

 nished him ample materials for microscopic examination from the subject 

 above mentioned. Mr. Owen at once described the entozoon, which he 

 named Trichina spiralis, and reported the result of his investigation to the 

 Zoological Society. 



Dr. Henry J. Bowditch, of Boston, was the first American who noticed 

 the Trichina spiralis. If. 



No one had ever suggested a source of or how this parasite found its 

 way into the human subject until Dr. Leidy, while eating a piece of ham 

 at his own breakfast table, discovered its existence in the hog. In an- 

 nouncing his discovery, with his usual caution, he said that he supposed 

 it to be the Trichina spiralis described by Owen. This may be a reason 

 wiiy it was not generally recognized at the time. The publication of it 

 in the Proceedings of the Academy was copied in full in the Annals and 

 31agazine of Natvral History, Vol. xix, p. 358, London, 1847 ; and Drs. F. 

 Kiichenmeister and F. A. Ziirn slate, in their work on the Parasites of 

 Men, that "Leidy found, in 1847, the parasite in the muscle of pigs."§ 



* The London Medical Gazette for February 2, 1833, Vol. xi, p. 605. 



+ See Proceedings Zool. Soc. 



t His observations are published in the Boston Med. and Surg. Jour, for 1842 and 1844. 



§Dr. T. Spencer Cobbold, a chief English authority on the subject, in his work on 

 Entozoa, published in 1864, cites Dr. Leidy in his bibliography, but does not mention 

 him in his text in reference to Trichinx. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXX. 138. T. PRINTED APRIL 23, 1893. 



