52 H. T. WHITTELL ON THE DEGENERATION OF HYDATID CYSTS. 



mode of sealing with which I was then acquainted would protect it 

 from destruction in its transit through the post. Having, however, 

 last year decided on a visit to Europe, I determined to try whether 

 I could bring it safely to London. I have not been quite successful ; 

 some of the glycerine has escaped, but the special object is in much 

 the same condition as when I first found it. I notice that our 

 President has referred in his last work to an outline sketch I sent 

 him of this find, and he suggests that it is a specimen of Filaria 

 sanguinis hominis. If this be so, it is certainly the only specimen 

 that has been found in South Australia, and we shall be stimulated 

 to search for other specimens in that region, particularly since the 

 strange discoveries lately made elsewhere tend to show that the 

 Mosquito may after all be of some use in tlie world, even though 

 that use may be nothing more dignified than serying as hosts to the 

 Filaria in certain stages of its development. 



It may interest you to know that the gentleman whose case I 

 liave just sketched, was cured after the emptying of the cyst, and 

 lived on for several years, when he died from disease in no way 

 connected with his former ailment. 



Since the occurrence of this case I have frequently met with 

 others in which a similar looking fiuid passed through the needle 

 after puncture of hydatid cysts, and when opportunity has served I 

 have searched for similar psorospermial bodies. I have not always 

 succeeded in finding them, but I have met with them sufficiently 

 often to convince me that their existence in hydatid fluid is more 

 than a mere coincidence. I have never found them in such numbers 

 as in the first case, and sometimes I have had to search through 

 several dippings before I have succeeded in finding any. 



On one occasion a lady came to Adelaide from the Interior for 

 treatment of a large hydatid cyst in the liver. I drew off Irom it 

 about two pints of perfectly transparent fluid which, on examina- 

 tion, was found to contain numerous living Echinococci. She re- 

 turned to her home a few days after, with instructions to come back 

 in three or four months if she found tlie tumour had not qaite dis- 

 appeared. She returned about six months afterwards, when I found 

 there was still considerable swelling, and I performed a second 

 operation. On this occasion I obtained only a few ounces of fluid, 

 but this was quite different in appearance froni the first. It was 

 much thicker, and of a greyish-yellow colour. On microscopical 

 examination, I found numerous granular cells about the size of pus 

 i^lobules, numerous booklets of Echinococci, and after a rather pro- 



