GREGARIXA OF EARTHWORM. 369 



I^iscliney-XoYgorod, and in the kidneys of a patient who 

 died from Blight's disease, bear very strongly on the nature 

 of these bodies. The people of Novgorod are believed to 

 get tliese parasites from washing in water in which Grega- 

 rince abound,^ The most interesting inquiry which is 

 placed before us by these various facts is whether, as 

 Professor Leuckart has observed, " the psorospermias " 

 (and we may add the " spurious entozoa " of cattle, and 

 even many so-called Gregarince) are to be considered as 

 the result of a special animal development, or whether 

 they are the final products of pathological metamor- 

 phosis. 



It appears, from the reseaches of M. Claparede and 

 others, that some of the unilocular forms do present very 

 curious, elongated, and active forms, which, from their 

 movements and general aj^pearance, might be mistaken for 

 nematodes. Dr. Joseph Leidy has, in the " Transactions 

 of the Philadelphia Society, 1853," denied the fact tliat 

 the Gregarince are unicellular animals, on the following 

 grounds : — In the examinations of some new species of 

 GregarincB which he has described, and also in the 

 G. Blotharum of Siehold, he discovered that the membran^i 

 enclosing the granular mass of the posterior sac was 

 double. He observes : " Within the parietal tunic of the 

 posterior sac is a second membrane, which is transparent, 

 colourless, and marked by a most beautiful set of exceed- 

 ingly regular parallel longitudinal lines." 



M. Leiberkiihn contributed a very elaborate paper 

 on the Gregarina of the earthworm. He does not express 

 any very decided opinion upon the two questions whicli 

 have been discussed by Leidy and Bruch, but devotes the 

 principal part of his memoir to the development and re- 

 production of the Gregarinaj. With regard to the develop- 

 ment of Gregarince into a filaria-like worm, which Bruch 

 thought probable, ]\I. Leiberkiihn says but little, but, 

 nevertheless, has proved beyond doubt that the nematodes 



(1) Many vague and iraprohahle statements appeared at ons time on a sup- 

 posed discovery of Gregarin'c in the human hair. Upon a more careful cxanii- 

 nation being made by competent persons, the foreign body proved to be a well- 

 known vegetable fungus, often found associated with a disease, or dirtj* 

 neglect'ed state of the skin. It is very well known that Gregarines are never 

 found on free or exposed surfaces. 



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