NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



Simulated Helminthiasis— Under this head is a short com- 

 municatiou in the ' Archiv fur Anat. and Phys. 186.2/ p. 275, 

 from Dr. A. Schneider, relating to the so-termed Sjm'optera 

 Hominis of Rudolphi, an eutozoon, which, from its apparently 

 extreme rarity, has been a puzzle to helminthologists for 

 more than fifty years. The case in question occurred in 

 London, and will be found described in detail by Mr. 

 Lawrence in the ' Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.' It was 

 that of a woman in St. Sepulchre's Workhouse, and the worms 

 were said to be passed from the uretlu"a, and they were oc- 

 casionally even drawn off through the catheter, so that no 

 doubts with respect to deception appear to have been enter- 

 tained at the time."^ 



Specimens, having been forwarded by Mr. Barnett to 

 Rudolphi, are still preserved in his collection now in the 

 Zoological Museum at Berlin, and it is these specimens which 

 have formed the subject of Dr. Schneider's observa-tions. 



They are contained, as described by Rudolphi, in three 

 bottles. When Dr. Schneider first looked at those contained 

 in one of the bottles, they appeared to be well-known forms, 

 and nothing more, in fact, than the very common Filaria 

 piscium, Auct. [Agamonema jnscium, Dies.), a name under 

 which several species of asexual nematoid have been de- 

 scribed, which are found in the abdominal cavity and among 

 the muscles of several marine fishes. The specimens in this 

 bottle were the commonest species of all, as was proved by a 

 number of the most distinctive characters. The mouth is 

 surrounded by three indistinct labial lobes, one of which 

 supports a tooth. The vascular system is very peculiar, and 

 presents a disposition met "uatli in but few nematoid worms, 

 the oesophagus having posteriorly a caecal prolongation. Not 

 in this point only, however, but also in the histological details 

 to Avhich the comparison was extended, did Filaria jnscium 

 agree with the supposed Spiroptera hominis. 



But the worm is said to have come directly from the 

 urethra, that is to say from the bladder — how did it get 

 there ? It is impossible that a nematoid worm, whose proper 

 habitat is the body of a fish, should, even in an exceptional 

 case, inhabit the urinary bladder of a warm-blooded animal. 

 Such a supposition is contrary to all that we know of the 



* See Art. "Entozoa," 'Cjc. Anat. and Phys.,' vol. ii, p. 127. 



