320 MR. R. OWEN’S DESCRIPTION OF A MICROSCOPIC ENTOZOON 
enlarged and fatty. ‘The mucous membrane of the small intestines was ulcerated to a 
great extent.” 
About a fortnight after the dissection of the above subject, a second was brought 
into the rooms, similarly affected ; respecting which Mr. Paget, who first noticed the 
parasites in the Italian, has favoured me with the following note. 
‘The second body was that of a poor Irishwoman, who had been in Mr. Lawrence’s 
ward for six weeks. She had died in a state of extreme emaciation, produced by a large 
sloughing ulcer just below the knee, by which a considerable portion of the head of the 
tibia had been exposed. She had had occasional severe diarrhoea, and obstinate vo- 
miting.” 
As regards the seat of the Trichine, they occur in all the voluntary muscles, and in 
those which have been termed semi-voluntary or respiratory, as the diaphragm. My 
friend Mr. Wormald examined and detected them in the minute muscles of the tym- 
panum ; as many as twenty-five were lodged in the tensor tympani. I could perceive 
no trace of them in portions of the muscular coat of the small or large intestines, 
neither could I detect any in the detrusor urine or in the substance of the heart. 
A portion of the muscle of the first subject which was sent to me being in a state of 
incipient putrescence, I preserved it in spirit of wine for three days before examining 
it; yet after macerating a small portion in water, and separating the cysts, the worms 
when pressed out continued, to my surprise, to exhibit motions, which, though languid, 
were sufficiently evident, tightening and dilating their coils. Isuppose that, being buried 
in the flesh and defended by the dense exterior cyst, the spirit had not penetrated so as 
to act sufficiently upon them to destroy their vitality ; for on adding a drop of alcohol 
to the expressed worms, and afterwards moistening them with water, the motions of 
coiling and uncoiling ceased. More languid motions than those above described were 
afterwards noticed by Mr. Wormald and myself in some specimens that were examined 
a fortnight after the death of the subject infested by them: but it is difficult whether to 
refer these to hygrometrical influence or to irritability. 
The tenacity of life or irritability manifested by these low-organized Invertebrata, 
has attracted the attention of almost every entozoologist. Rudolphi especially takes 
notice of the power which the Entozoa possess of resisting the deadly effect of ardent 
spirits', and relates many other singular instances of their tenacity of life, of which not 
the least remarkable is that which is manifested by the Filaria Capsularia before referred 
to. When the hard-frozen herrings which are sent packed up in ice to Berlin are 
thawed for use, these Filarie or Capsularie revive and exhibit lively motions?. The 
same remarkable property is occasionally forced upon the notice of individuals not 
' Synopsis Entozoorum, p. 595. 
2 “In Harengas congelatas rigidas et glacie textas frigida affusa reviviscere viderim,” —Hist. Entoz., tom. ii. 
p. 62. 

