ENTOZOA IN THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 205 



individuals ajBPected by it. Nothing definite is yet 

 known respecting the causes and the conditions upon 

 which the attacks of this parasite depend.^ 



Contrary to what might be expected, the persons 

 in whom trichinae have been found after death did 

 not in the majority of cases complain of pain, or of 

 any particular symptom which could be assigned to 

 the presence of these worms ; their existence might 

 consequently be unattended by serious results, at 

 any rate for some time, as they are not reproduced 

 in the muscular structure (owing to their not being 

 provided with organs of reproduction), and as they 

 always perish before they acquire very considerable 

 dimensions. They leave behind them the cysts, in 

 and around which cretaceous matter and particles of 

 fat are deposited. 



In some few instances, sub-acute pain and feverish- 

 ness have marked the invasion of trichinae, but not 

 to such an extent as to be decisively diagnostic of 



* It has been suggested by Leuckart, and some other German. 

 writers, that the young trichinae having found their way acci- 

 dentally, like other entozoa, into the alimentary canal, subsequently 

 pierce the intestinal walls, and, guided by the intermuscular con^ 

 nective tissue, reach the interior of the muscular fasciculus, where 

 their development is continued. This opinion is highly hypo- 

 thetical, especially as no ksion of the intestinal walls has been 

 found upon making a post-mortem examination ; besides which it 

 would be difficult to reconcile these views with the observations 

 which have been made respecting the action of other entozoa 

 upon the walls of the intestines, and with the fact that the 

 trichinse are almost always more abundant in the superficial than 

 in the deep-seated muscles. 



The supposition that the existence of the trichinae is probably 

 connected with the employment of diseased flesh, such as measly 

 pork, as an article of food, is partly in accordance with theory 

 and the results of experimentation. 



