STEONGYLUS SUBTILIS IN JAPAN. 161 



between the parasite and the disease, if indeed such relations can be sup' 

 posed to have existed. However there were enough other circumstances 

 that drew away from the parasite the attentions of all the investigators of 

 the Miura plague. It must have occurred to them that some of its symp- 

 toms, as for instance the extensive ecchimosis in parts far away from the 

 intestine, are hardly to be brought into connection with the presence of 

 intestinal worms. Suffice it to mention that Ogata himself believed, after 

 a series of inquiries and experimentations, to have good reasons to con- 

 sider the Miura plague as poisoning brought about by eating certain 

 oysters. In this opinion he was supported by the physicians of the 

 Navy who had investigated the mitter, but hotly contested by 

 Nakahama, who, on ground of his own inquiries and experiments, 

 maintained that the plague represented a disease, perhaps hitherto un- 

 known but which was nearest allied to the exanthematic typhus. • The 

 controversy pivoted on poisoning or not poisoning, from which Strong- 

 yhis suhtilis stood entirely aloof; and hence, we need not follow it any 

 farther. After all, the Miura plague remains an unsettled question and 

 so also the pathological significance of Strongyhis siihtilis in Japan. 



Looss found the worms, in his Egyptian cases, always in small 

 numbers and is inclined to ascribe no pathological influence to them. 

 But when found in hundi-eds as in Ogata's case, they are certainly not 

 to he so lightly dismissed, notwithstanding theii- small size and the 

 unarmed condition of their month. 



