558 EHRENBERG ON THE ORIGIN OF ORGANIC MATTER 



corpses without any worms, especially when we diligently look for them. 

 We find them also as seldom in such abundance as we might expect 

 from the ajDparent fecundity of these animals, which are not capable 

 of any voluntary limit. There must therefore be great and insurmount- 

 able difficulties for the development of the hundreds and thousands of 

 eggs which are often found in each individual of these parasites. I 

 Avould therefore not object to the older opinion, that the eggs of intestinal 

 worms are propelled by the circulation of the fluids into all parts of the 

 body, but develojj tliemselves there only where the particular conditions 

 requisite for this purpose are favourable. The smaller diameter of the 

 finest vessels through which they have to pass does not appear to me 

 to present any important difficulty, because these, as we see in every 

 inflammation, become easily and quickly expanded as soon as they are 

 irritated ; and these eggs may, as excretive bodies, like every body which 

 is foreign to our organism, act in an irritative manner, and may be 

 taken up by the embouchures of the absorbents and be propelled along 

 with increased activity through them : that this is the case with mercury, 

 pus, and other matters, has been already received as an observed fact *. 

 It is even probable that the eggs of the Entozoa and their propulsion 

 through the vascular system may be an important morbid matter hi- 

 therto overlooked, and which causes a part of the phaenomena compre- 

 hended under the name scrofula. In bodies which are particularly 

 favourable to the development of worms there must necessarily be an 

 innumerable quantity of secreted eggs of those parasites, which, if they 

 are not expelled by the intestinal canal or by the primce via, must, as 

 foreign bodies, produce disorders. If the absorjjtion takes place entirely 

 or for the most part in the lymphatics, it would occasion their general 

 or sole influence upon that system. Obstructions in the lymphatics, 

 but especially in their reticular tissue, the glands, which lead to local 

 congestions of lymph, inflammations, and morbid appearances of various 

 kinds, become in this manner very easy of comprehension ; and these as- 

 suredly deserve the attention of medical science, not as speculations but 

 as realities. Thousands of eggs of intestinal worms, whose existence in 

 many bodies cannot be denied, must perish, as they are rarely deve- 

 loped in such great quantities, from the difficulty of their attaining the 

 place and conditions favourable for their development ; while only some, 

 very often none, ever actually attain those conditions. This relative 

 proportion of the number of intestinal worms and of their eggs to the 



* Miiller {Physiologic, vol. i. p. 17) alleges that Ehrenberg endeavours to 

 weaken the generatio cequivoca of intestinal worms, but proves nothing; and, I 

 think, with reason ; for, according to his view, the eggs are taken up by the 

 lymphatic vessels and can-ied to all parts of the body. But how is tliat possible ? 

 They are evidently too large to enter into the lymphatics ; and how can they cir- 

 culate in those blood-vessels which are only 0-00025 of an inchin diameter, and 

 so reach the product-, of secretion, such as milk, yolk, &c. ? For this must be 

 supposed, since intestinal worms have been found in the foetus of mammalia and 

 in hens' eggs, &c. — W. F. 



