47 



On the Association of Bodies Resembling Psorospermia 

 WITH THE Degeneration of Hydatid Cysts. 



By H. T. Whittell, M.D., F.R.M.S., Con. Surgeon, Adelaide 

 Hospital, S. Australia, 



{Read January 23, 1880.) 



Plate III. 



My attention has been directed to the subject of Hydatids during 

 the last fifteen or sixteen years, and my practice in South Australia, 

 where Hi/datids are common, has afforded me a fair field for investi- 

 gation. Viewed in some aspects, the subject of this paper is doubt- 

 less better adapted for discussion in a Medical Society than in one 

 that is exclusively Microscopical ; but, as I purpose to avoid as 

 much as possible its medical bearings, and to confine my remarks to 

 a phase in the life-history of Hydatids, which can only be worked 

 out by microscopical observation, I have thought it better to pre- 

 sent an outline of such facts as are at my disposal to a Microscopical 

 Society rather than to one that is purely medical in its character. 

 And I have been the more anxious to place these facts before the 

 Quekett Club, because the President of this Club occupies a fore- 

 most place as an original worker and a writer on the subject of 

 parasitic disease. 



For the guidance of such members of the Club as are not familiar 

 with the ascertained facts with regard to the origin and life-history 

 of Hydatids, it may be well briefly to notice that an Hydatid is a 

 form of worm which infests various parts of the bodies of men or 

 other animals, and which, by its presence may occasion serious or 

 even fatal results to those in whose tissues they take up their habi- 

 tation. There is scarcely a part of the human body which I have 

 not seen infested by these worms, but their more common seats are 

 the liver and lungs. From the investigations of our best observers, 

 it is now established that the Hydatid is, in reality, an intermediate 

 form of existence between the ova on the one hand and a fully-de- 

 veloped tape- worm — Toenia echinococcus — on the other. This Tcenia 

 is a very minute worm, found chiefly in the intestines of dogs, and 

 affords a curious illustration of that form of worm which requires 



