236 Miscellaneous. 



produced by the inflammation of the neighbouring surfaces. This 

 membrane is formed of fibro-plastic tissue, or of embryonal cellular 

 tissue, covered with a multitude of elementary granulations. 



At this period of their development, these worms are very curious. 

 The scolcces were beginning to be formed ; but, as I expected, they 

 had as yet neither hooks nor suckers. The head, with its suckers 

 and hooks, would only have begun to show itself in eight days 

 afterwards. 



In drawing one of these worms from its cavity and bringing it 

 immediately upon the object-slide of the microscope, one is asto- 

 nished at the great contractility of its walls. Its surface becomes 

 wrinkled, its edges fringed, and the worm performs tolerably ex- 

 tended motions, which explain its action upon the cerebral mass ; 

 the substance of the brain in fact yields to the pressure of the para- 

 site. Cells are distinctly seen in the walls of the vesicle, and it is to 

 their contraction that its movements are due. 



Beneath the walls of the vesicular worm, vessels are to be seen 

 very distinctly, which anastomose like a capillary network ; they 

 correspond with the ordinary secretory apparatus of the Cestoid and 

 Trematode worms. 



When a scolex is about to be formed in the parent vesicle, the 

 surface of the vesicle becomes wrinkled in a certain spot ; these 

 wrinkles become circular ; the centre is then depressed, an eminence 

 appears in the centre of the depression, and the future scolex is 

 seen. Round the circular wrinkles, moreover, calcareous corpuscles 

 may already be seen, similar to those which incrust the body of the 

 scolex, but which do not exist on the hexacanthous embryo or 

 proscolex. 



M. Eschricht writes to me as follows from Copenhagen, under 

 date the 20th June : — 



" The Ccenurus-Tamia taken from the dog on the 24th May at 

 Bautzen, arrived at Copenhagen on the forenoon of the 26th, so that 

 they could be swallowed by three sheep, within forty-eight hours of 

 their removal from the intestines of the dog. One of the sheep has 

 not been affected by them, but the other two were taken ill on the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth days. They kept their heads turned to the 

 right, and one could not rest except on the left side, without being 

 seized with violent spasms. The inflammation of the brain was very 

 distinct, the eyes very red. They both died on the fourth day, and 

 I found a large quantity of small vesicles (2 or 3 mill, in diameter) 

 in the pia mater and in the cortical substance. In the muscles in 

 general, and in the walls of the heart, as well as beneath the skin, 

 there were also vesicles full of a yellowish matter, which are pro- 

 bably, as supposed by MM. Kiichenmeister and Harchner, aborted 

 individuals." 



I have also received intelligence from Giessen. M. Leuckart has 

 observed the symptoms to rise in the same period, and has found the 

 Coenuri in the same state of development. 



To those who can believe that the preceding results are mere 

 coincidences, I may observe, that the Ccenurus is so far from being 

 common here, that I waited three years before I was able to obtain 



