DEVELOPMENT OF EMBRYO. 75 



The law of nature nevertheless exists, although, for- 

 tunately for man, it may have fallen a sacrifice in his case to the 

 advance of civilisation. 



1 I may mention here that the Cyst, celluloses occurring in the human body, the 

 Echinococci, and any Cyst, tenuicolles which may be found in the same situation, are 

 called strayed by Von Siebold, because they could never reach the intestine of other 

 mammalia which they usually infest. It is true that in support of this assertion he 

 raises no objection with regard to these worms and the Trichina spiralis, except 

 the following exclamation : " That these parasites should be originally intended to take 

 up a temporary abode in the human body, that they should here lie waiting for an 

 opportunity to migrate, which can only present itself if the man harbouring the well- 

 known asexual parasites were to be devoured by a particular beast of prey, is an opinion 

 which every reader of these pages will certainly reject as incompatible with the dignity of 

 man, and in place of it readily admit that these parasites could only have strayed into 

 the interior of the human body when some opportunity presented itself." The untena- 

 bility of a natural history hypothesis must have made great progress when mystical 

 reasons must be seized upon, and an appeal made to novices on peculiar notions of 

 human dignity. With such delicate references to the dignity of man, how long will it 

 be allowable to call man a mammal ? Is not this too a profanation of this dignity ? 

 But what is the use of dwelling upon such things? If we pass to the examination of 

 this subject without too high notions of the dignity of human nature, we may suppose 

 with regard to the Echinococci that dogs and cats, for example, have the opportunity of 

 devouring Echinococcus-vesicles of man which have been evacuated by expectoration, by 

 vomiting, or with the faeces or urine. Moreover, in countries such as Iceland, in which 

 these parasites are endemic, and the human inhabitants live in constant intimate contact 

 with their dogs, we must also take into consideration that in the puncturing or removaj 

 of such vesicles by the surgeon, they may easily be thrown to the ground or fall there 

 unawares. If the dogs, which only wait until something to eat is thrown to them by their 

 masters, should be in the vicinity at this time, they would devour these animal vesicles 

 with their contents as a welcome booty, before the surgeon or the patient and his 

 people had time to allow a doubt to rise in their minds whether this behaviour of the 

 dogs towards the vesicles taken from their masters could be compatible with the notion 

 of the dignity of human nature. Are there none of my colleagues \\ho have already 

 found their bright ideas of the dignity of human nature injured because a mother who 

 wished to show the doctor the caseous stool, or the caseous vomited masses of her child, 

 has found the vessel in which these masses were, or the dirty clothes, quite empty, and 

 on the cat, cleaning herself in the vicinity, distinct indications of how well this animal 

 has relished the evacuations of her child ? In this case what is the use of all high 

 notions of the dignity of human nature ! With the progress of civilization the devouring 

 of human bodies has certainly been diminished; such deep interment of human bodies 

 has been introduced, that if hyenas occurred with us they could not so easily get at them ; 

 wolves and other carnivorous animals have been driven so far from the vicinity of man, 

 that the latter can rarely become their prey; and lastly, in order to maintain the species, 

 Nature has even taken care that not merely one, but several species of animals occur as 

 the hosts of these cestoid Iarva3 (e. g., man, with the pigs and apes, for Cyst, celluloses ; 

 these and the ruminants for Cyst, tenuicollis and Echinococcus scolicipariens ; man, 

 and sometimes also the ruminants, for E. altricipariens). But all this is no contra- 



