NEMATODA 151 



" the first observation of these little bodies was made in 1828 " 

 by Mr H. Peacock. The latter made a dry preparation of the 

 sterno-hyoideus muscle to display the specks. That preparation 

 is the oldest in existence, and may be seen in Guy's Museum. 

 It may further be remarked that Henle, Kiichenmeister, 

 Davaine, myself, and others, have pointed to a notice by 

 Tiedemann as probably, or possibly, indicating a prior observa- 

 tion of the specks. Leuckart rejects the evidence. Dr Pagen- 

 stecher appears to be in doubt as to the nature of the bodies in 

 question. As the passage in question possibly gave a rough 

 and imperfect description of the now familiarly known calcified 

 Trichina capsules, I give a translation of it (Froriep's ' Notizen/ 

 1822, Bd. i, s. 64) : " At a post-mortem examination of a man 

 who had been a great brandy- drinker, and who died from 

 thoracic dropsy after several severe attacks of gout, Tiede- 

 mann found white stony concretions in most of the muscles, 

 especially at the extremities. They lay in the cellular tissue 

 between the fibre-bundles, frequently also attached to (or near) 

 the walls of the arteries, being from two to four lines long, 

 and roundish. The chemical examination conducted by Gmelin 

 yielded seventy-three parts phosphate of lime, seven parts car- 

 bonate of lime and twenty parts animal matter, resembling albu- 

 men or fibrin." In regard to this notice Dr Pagenstecher (' Die 

 Trichinen/ s. 4) has remarked that Tiedemann' s ff communica- 

 tion was also referred by Henle to such a parasitic development 

 when he subsequently found Trichina ; and in this sense it was 

 afterwards received by Diesing, Kiichenmeister, and Davaine. 

 But it has been rejected by Leuckart on account of the size (from 

 two to four lines) and seat of the concretions. True, it has 

 never yet been observed that the capsuled Trichina (not measur- 

 ing a tenth part of that diameter) subsequently constituted centres 

 of gouty deposit exceeding their own bulk, nor is it likely that 

 they should. Seeing, however, as we often do, that errors 

 respecting size have crept into works on Trichina, we shall not 

 need to lay much stress upon these statements ; still less so 

 since the notice is very superficial, and its character is essen- 

 tially of a physiologico-chemical nature. But this, at least, 

 seems to us decisive, that when BischofF, at Heidelberg, wrote 

 on a case which occurred in Heidelberg, not one single word 

 was mentioned respecting a former case, if such should have 

 happened, although Tiedemann and himself were on terms of 

 close intimacy." So much for Tiedemann. In regard to 



