RESEARCHES IN HELMINTHOLOGY AND PARASITOLOGY 1 7 



The genus ///his is an extensive one, and its species are found in 

 all the great parts of the globe, and as their habits are the same, the 

 conditions for the production of the entophyta will be the same, and 

 I think I do not go too far when I say they will be constantly found 

 throughout the genus in any part of the world, so that naturalists 

 and others may, upon examination, readily verify or contradict the 

 statements which I have this evening presented. 



From these facts we may perceive that we may have entophyta 

 in luxurious growth within living animals without affecting their 

 health, which is further supported by my having detected mycoder- 

 matoid filaments in the C(jecum of six young and healthy rats, exam- 

 ined immediately after death, although they existed in no other 

 part of the body. These filaments were minute, simple and inar- 

 ticulate, measuring from i -5000th to i-i428th inch in length by 

 i-i6oootli of an inch in breadth. With them were also found two 

 species of Vibrio. 



Even those moving filamentary bodies belonging to the genus 

 I hbrio, I am inclined to think, are of the character of algous vege- 

 tation. Their movement is no objection to this opinion, for much 

 higher confervte, as the Oscillatorias, are endowed with inherent 

 power of movement, not very unlike that of the Vibrio, and indeed 

 the movement of the latter appears to belong only to one stage of 

 its existence. Thus, in the toad, {Bufo auiericaiius,) in the stomach 

 and small intestine, there exist simple, delicate, filamentary bodies, 

 which are of three different kinds. One is exceedingly minute, 

 forms a single spiral, is endowed with a power of rapid movement, 

 and appears to be the Spirillum undula of Ehrenberg ; the second 

 is an exceedingly minute, straight, and short filament, with a move- 

 ment actively molecular in character, and is probably the Vibrio 

 lineola of the same author ; the third consists of straight, motionless 

 filaments, measuring i-ii25th inch long by i-i50ooth broad ; some 

 were, however, twice or even thrice this length ; but then I could 

 always detect one or two articulations, and these, in all their char- 

 acters, excepting want of movement, resemble the Vibrio. In the 

 rectum of the same animal, the same filamentary bodies are found, 

 with myriads of Bodo intcstutalis ; but the third species, or longest 

 of the filamentary bodies, have increased immensely in numbers, 

 and now possess the movement peculiar to the Vibrio lineola, which, 

 however, does not appear to be voluntary, but reactionary ; they 

 bend and pursue a straight course, until they meet with some ob- 

 stacle, when they instantly move in the opposite direction, either 

 extremity forward. 



