12 



subject would reflect the importance of STRICKEB'S dis- 

 coveries, but also that treatment would have been devised on 

 the lines they so clearly indicate. Medical men ought to 

 have recognised that purgatives and enemas were useless, 

 since the anatomical position and character of the coecum 

 would naturally prevent a thorough sweeping away of the 



The arrow A indicates the coecum, the usual habitat of threadworms in 

 the bowels. B shows the rectum, which is by some still erroneously regarded 

 as their residence. The sketch demonstrates that a very considerable 

 distance separates these two portions of the intestine, and that it is^ im- 

 possible for measures directed to the rectum to have any effect on' the 

 parasites in the coecum. 



parasites, and hence new therapeutical principles for com- 

 bating the disease might have been evolved. 



Ignorance of Modern Writers. 



But ho such revolution has taken place. Indeed, STRICKER'S 

 discovery itself is probably to this day quite unknown to many 

 general practitioners who are daily called upon to treat this 

 disease. For down, indeed, to quite recent times, not only 

 minor medical writers, but authors of standard works on 

 medicine have been content to reiterate, one after another, 



