262 PARASITES OF MAN 



recognised in it a new variety of Pentastoma, to which he gave 

 the name of P. constrictiim. In Germany the Pentastoma was 

 found in the human liver by Zenker (' Zeitschr. f. ration. Med./ 

 1854, Bd. v, s. 224) ; it occurs, however, not only in this gland, 

 but also in the kidneys, and in the submucous tissue of the 

 small intestine (Wagner). The parasite is by no means rare 

 with us. Zenker, at Dresden, succeeded in finding it nine 

 times out of 168 autopsies ; Heschl, at Vienna, met with it five 

 times out of twenty autopsies ; Wagner, at Leipsig, once in ten. 

 According to Virchow, it is more common in Berlin than in 

 Central Germany. During six months at Breslau I met with it 

 in five out of forty-seven dead bodies. The Pentastoma-endemic 

 in Germany is not identical with that which occurs in Egypt ; 

 the former is the P. denticulatum of Kudolphi." This clear 

 statement of Frerichs is valuable ; but, as Murchison has also 

 pointed out, there is some discrepancy between Frerichs and 

 Kiichenmeister's record of Zenker's experience. According 

 to Kiichenmeister, Zenker met with the Pentastoma thirty times 

 in 200 autopsies. 



Although from a purely clinical point of view, and speaking 

 generally, this worm, as Frerichs says, can claim little attention, 

 yet, as we shall see (when treating of the parasites of the dog), 

 it occasionally proves fatal to the canine bearer. Not only so, 

 it may even occasion severe inconvenience to the human bearer. 

 Quite recently a remarkable instance of this kind occurred in 

 Germany, some notice of which appeared in the ' Medical Times 

 and Gazette/ Jan. 4th, 1879, as follows : 



" Dr Landon of Elbing (' Berl. Klin. Wochenschrift/ No. 49, 

 1878) relates the case of a workman, aged forty-two, who soon 

 after the Franco-German campaign of 1870 was laid up with pain 

 in the hepatic region, jaundice, and gastric disturbance, which 

 symptoms persisted more or less until 1874, when he came 

 under Dr Landon' s care with an attack apparently of perihepatitis. 

 It then appeared that since 1871 he had also suffered from severe 

 attacks of epistaxis, which occurred often twice in the same day. 

 The patient complained of a feeling of painful pressure in the 

 left nasal cavity, but with the speculum nothing but a moderate 

 degree of inflammatory swelling could be detected. Suddenly, 

 at Easter, 1878, a parasite was disloged from the left side of 

 the nose by a violent sneeze, and from that moment the epis- 

 taxis has not occurred. Its cause proved to be the Pentastoma 

 tanioides." 



