11 



Thousands of medical writers have dealt with it at varying 

 length, but they have added very little, if anything, to our 

 real knowledge of the malady 1 , or of its treatment, and, down 

 to the middle of the 19th century, they blundered, without 

 exception, into the fallacy of describing the rectum as the 

 principal abode of the parasite 2 . Up to that time no one had 

 taken the trouble to investigate this point,^ clearer knowledge 

 of which would, at least, have rendered obsolete the cruel and 

 useless treatment per rectum. 



Strieker's Discovery. 



It was left for the eminent pathologist, W. STRICKER, to prove 

 the traditions of the past to have been erroneous. By means 

 of repeated dissections, he convinced himself that the ccecum, 

 that part of the bowels which intervenes between the small 

 and the large intestine, is the real seat of the disease ; and 

 that, in order to deal with it, measures must be taken which 

 will attack the worms in that region. His conclusions were 

 published in 1861 3 . 



These facts have been accepted by all helminthologists, 

 and confirmed by all pathological anatomists, and one might 

 reasonably have expected, not only that the literature on the 



1 The ambition for originality led adscendisse inventi sunt." ( MULDER, 

 some writers to look upon the worms' G. J., ibid. p. 14.) 



presence as beneficial : " Quelques 3 " Der Madenwurm wohnt nicht 

 medecins ont voulu prouver, que in dem Mastdarm, er entwickelt sich 

 les vers etaient necessaires pour nicht in demselben, well man nie 

 la conservation de la sante, alleguant Junge in dem Mastdarm findet ; 

 qu'ils etaient un moyen de destruc- er bewohnt das Ende des Diinn- 

 tion de pretendus principes de darms (Ileum) und den Blinddarm. 

 maladies." (PARROT, A., Dissertation Daher sind die Anthelmintica mitz- 

 sur les vers intestinaux, Paris, 1826, los, denn sowohl durch den Mund 

 pp. 11, 12.) " Clark majora mala als in Form von Clysma gegeben, 

 illos arcere assumsit, irritatis modice sind sie zersetzt, bis sie an den 

 intestinis. Bianchi vero humores Wohnort der Wurmer gelangen, 

 pravos ab iisdem absorberi statuit. welche ausserdem bei ihrer Klein- 

 Tandem Goeze dixit, illos humores heit durch jede Darmfalte vor 

 superfluos absorbereet consumere." medicamentosen Einwirkungen ge- 

 (MULDER, G. J., Commentatio de schiitzt werden." (STRICKER, W., 

 entozois, Traj. ad Rhenum, 1823, Physiologisch - pathologisc/ie Bemer- 

 p. 81.) Tcungen ueber Oxyurjs vermicu- 



2 Supposed habitat of thread- laris in VIRCHOW'S Archiv fuer 

 worm: "Habitat in intestino pathologische Anatomie und Physiolo- 

 recto, et parte descendente intestini gie und fuer klinische Medicin, Berlin, 

 coli ; in ipsum autem ventriculum 1861, vol. xxi., p. 360.) 



