204 



COCCIDIUM OVIFORME. 



These nodules are so like pseudoplasmic deposits that we can 

 understand how the first observers regarded and described them as such. 



FIG. 106. Coccidium oviforme, from the liver of the rabbit ( x 550). C-G, stage* 

 of spore-formation only observed in the free state. 



(Jarswell considered them to be tubercles, and Hake, 1 who was the 

 first to examine them more minutely, regarded them as carcinomata. 

 They were thought to have arisen from degeneration of the bile-ducts, 

 and to enclose numerous pus-corpuscles of peculiar form. Nasse 2 

 contradicted Hake's conclusion, and thought that the " pus-corpuscles " 

 should be regarded as abnormally altered epithelium. He compares 

 them to cartilage-cells, and urged that " the epithelium of the bile-duct 

 of sheep is sometimes found ossified, namely, when the sheep are in- 

 fested with Distomum" 



FIG. 107 Liver of a rabbit with (Tpm'di urn-nodules. 



The true nature of these bodies long remained uncertain, although 

 Remak 3 pointed out the resemblance between these structures and the 

 Psorosperms just discovered by Job. Miiller, and asserted their close 



1 "A treatise of varicose capillaries, as constituting the structure of carcinoma of the 

 hepatic ducts, with an account of a new form of pus globuli :" London, 1839. 



2 " Ueber die eiformigen Zellen der tuberkelahnlichen Ablagerungen in den Gallen- 

 gangen der Kaninchen," MiiUers Archivf. Anat. u. Physld., p. 209 et seq., 1843. 



3 ' Diagnostische und pathologische Untersuchungen, " p. 235 : Berlin, 1845. 



