KUCHENMEISTER INTRODUCES HELMINTHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT. 39 



known to the older workers in this department. It has already been 

 mentioned that Abildgaard in this way proved beyond doubt the 

 migration of Schistocephalus solidus from the body-cavity of the fish to 

 the intestine of the water-fowl. Also Pallas, Bloch, and Goze made 

 the attempt to decide certain questions by the introduction of Hel- 

 minths, or their germs, into various animals, without, however, getting 

 any results of great importance. 



Besides the widespread belief in spontaneous generation, which 

 arrested so powerfully the progress of helminthology, the manifest 

 unfruitfulness of the experimental method gradually caused it to drop 

 into oblivion. It was reserved for Kuchenmeister to reintroduce 

 this method, and to show its importance for all time. A new and 

 active vitality was thus breathed into helminthological science, so 

 that observations and discoveries came thick and fast. Hardly a year 

 had elapsed after the first trial of his method before Kuchenmeister 

 announced 1 that he had succeeded in obtaining bladder- worms from 

 the bodies of animals fed with the ripe proglottides, and thus com- 

 pleted the whole cycle of the life-history of Cestodes. 2 



The earliest experiment was made upon a sheep which died before 

 the complete maturity of the bladder- worms, obviously on account of 

 the experiment. Without a thorough knowledge of the development 

 of the bladder- worms, which was the condition of naturalists at that 

 time, the result of the experiment might have been doubted, had not 

 Haubner 3 and Leuckart 4 completely demonstrated that fact, by 

 rearing almost all known bladder-worms, on an extensive scale, in 

 suitable animals. But this experimental method was not confined to 

 bladder-worms and tape-worms ; it was also applied to other Entozoa, 

 and in these cases also the same facts were strikingly shown. 



De Filippi, 5 de la Valette, 6 and Pagenstecher 7 proved, by means 



1 Gunsburg's Zcitschr. f. klin. Med., p. 448, 1853. 



2 I am unable to understand how Kuchenmeister can complain " that German science 

 hardly thanked him for the services that he had rendered " (This passage is reproduced 

 from the first into the second edition of his " Parasiten des Menschen," 1878, Preface) 

 nor yet why he reproaches me with neglecting no opportunity of attacking him in an unfair 

 manner. On the contrary, I feel satisfied that I have always plainly stated what science 

 does owe to him in the way both of discovery and suggestion (see Preface to the first 

 edition of this work, p. iv.). I have also corrected his unfortunately numerous errors, but 

 only in those cases where it could not be avoided. Had I really wished to attack him, 

 there was plenty of material at my disposal, at any rate more than Kuchenmeister in his 

 most recent work has endeavoured to bring up against me. 



8 Gurlfs Magazin fur ges. T flier- HeUkundc, 1854 and 1855. 



4 " Die Blasenbandwurmer u'nd ihre Entwickelung : " Giessen, 1856, p. 38 et seq. 



5 " Mem. pour servir a 1'hist. gene"t. des Trematodes : " Turin, t. i.-iii. 



6 " Symbolse ad Trematodum evolut. Hist. :" Berolini, 1855. 



7 " Trematodenlarven und Trematoden : " Heidelberg, 1857. "Ueber Erziehung 

 von Distomum echinatum durch Futterung," Archiv /. Naturgesch., Bd. i., p. 246, 1857. 



