496 ANATOMICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



of these 'spheroidal bodies,' when Dr. Allen Thomson 

 ascertained that Dr. Sharj^ey was in the habit of mentioning 

 them in his courses of lectures in the University College. I 

 accordingly wrote Dr. Sharpey on the subject, and I am 

 indebted to that gentleman for the following interesting 

 accounts of what has been already recorded regarding this 

 entozoon : — 



" When I was in Berlin some years ago, the late Professor 

 Eudolphi remarked to me in conversation^ tliat he thought it 

 not unlikely the little bodies discovered by Dr. Monro 2d, on 

 the nerves of the cod, haddock, and other aUied fish, would 

 turn out on examination to be entozoa ; and he suggested 

 that 1 should take an opportunity of inquiring into the point 

 on my return to Scotland. Accordingly, in the autumn of 

 1836, I examined these bodies in the haddock or whiting, I 

 really forget which, but I think it was the former, and found 

 that each of them was a little cyst, containing a Distoma, 

 which could be easily turned out from its enclosure alive. 

 The specimens I examined were from the membranes of the 

 brain. 



" This observation was made in Edinburgh, and on going 

 to London soon after, I mentioned the fact to Mr. Owen ; and 

 I have been accustomed to take notice of it in my lectures 

 ever since, suggesting at the same time that it would be well 

 to search for them, or for analogous parasites, in the nerves 

 of other animals, as it was not likely that the gadus tribe of 

 fishes should be the only example. Indeed, unless my me- 

 mory deceives me, some one has met with something of the 

 same kind in the nerves of the frog ; and Valentin has seen 

 the eggs of Distoma in the vertebral canal of a foetal sheep. 

 When I learned that the oval bodies, which all must have 

 seen in the cellular tissue of the palm of the hand and fingers, 

 were connected with the nerves, I at first imagined they 



