ON A H^MATOZOON IN HUMAN BLOOD: 



ITS 



RELATION TO CHYLURIA AND OTHER DISEASES.* 



By 



T. E. LEWIS, M.B. 



For many generations writers on medical subjects have maintained that the human 

 blood during certain diseased conditions is invaded by parasites. The opinion most in 

 favour has been that these, in all probability, were in the form of worms, but so far 

 as I have been able to ascertain, it has never yet been satisfactorily demonstrated 

 that this condition really existed. 



That certain limited areas of the circulatory tract may become invaded by 

 Entozoa has long been known : the portal vein and the vessels in more or less direct 

 relation with the intestinal canal are the channels which have usually been thus 

 affected ; but the parasites found in these situations, such as the Distoma haema- 

 tobium, discovered by Bilharz in 1851, and a few other imperfectly described distomata, 

 are far too large to pass through any but comparatively capacious blood-vessels. The 

 instances on record in which they have been found in vessels beyond these limits are few, 

 and evidently accidental occurrences. None of these therefore, can, I think, be justly 

 described as "hsematozoa" in the strict sense of the term. 



The same remarks apply, with only very slight modifications, to the presence of 

 Echinococci in the blood-vessels, a few young specimens of which have, on rare 

 occasions, been discovered (by Klencke and others) in the general circulation, but 

 then only in vessels of considerable calibre. 



It has also been inferred that the progeny of some Entozoa must be carried by 

 the blood-current, as otherwise they could not have reached their destination so 

 rapidly in the various distant parts of the body in which they have been found. That 

 the Trichina spiralis, for example, during its earlier migrations, may be conveyed in 

 this way, is, although strongly denied, I think not improbable. As their presence in 



* From " Indian Annals of Medical Science," January 1874. 



