TREMATOUA 19 



" Dr Kichner's patient was a young girl, the daughter of the 

 parish shepherd at Kaplitz, having been accustomed to look 

 after the sheep ever since she was nine years old. The 

 pasture where the animals fed was enclosed by woods, being 

 traversed by two water dykes, and being, moreover, also sup- 

 plied by ten little stagnant pools. These reservoirs harboured 

 numerous amphibia and mollusks (such as Lymnaus and Palu- 

 dina), and the child often quenched her thirst from the half 

 putrid water. Probably she also partook of the watercresses 

 growing in the ditches. At length her abdomen became much 

 distended, the limbs much emaciated, and her strength de- 

 clined. Half a year before death she was confined to her bed, 

 being all the while shamefully maltreated by her step-mother. 

 Dr Kichner only saw her three days before her death, and 

 ascertained that she had complained of pain (for several years) 

 over the region of the liver. A sectio cadaveris was ordered 

 by the Government, when (in addition to the external evidences 

 of the cruel violence to which the poor creature had been sub- 

 jected) it was found that she had an enormously enlarged liver, 

 weighing eleven pounds, The gall-bladder which was very 

 much contracted and nearly empty, contained eight calculi and 

 forty-seven specimens of the Distoma lanceolatum y all of which 

 were sexually mature/' 



As I have remarked in a former comment on this singular 

 case, one can have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion 

 that these parasites were obtained from the girl's swallowing 

 trematode larvse, either in their free or in their encysted 

 condition. Leuckart says it was not possible to ascertain 

 whether the parasites had any connection with the gall-stones, 

 or whether the two maladies, so to speak, were independent 

 of each other ; yet this question might possibly have been 

 solved if the calculi had been broken up in order to ascertain 

 their structure. It is just possible that dead distomes may 

 have formed their nuclei, and if so > the circumstance would, 

 of course, point to the worms as the original source of the 

 malady. 



So far as I am aware, the actual transformations undergone 

 by the larvae of Distoma lanceolatum have not been observed. 

 The Planorlis marginatus has been confidently referred to as 

 the intermediate bearer of the cercariae of the common fluke, 

 and Leuckart supposes that the same mollusk harbours the 

 larvee of this species. The ciliated embryos carry a boring 



