2G 



as it now stands, is so constituted that an animal may be referred to 

 it without much real or available knowledge of its organization being 

 thereby afforded : it embraces animals with the molecular, and others 

 with the filiform, condition of the nervous system ; conditions wlrich are 

 accomjjanied by different types of the digestive system, and which in- 

 dicate not merely differences of class, but even of primary division, in 

 the animal kingdom. Mr. Owen considers the animal under consider- 

 ation as being most nearly allied to that form of the Polygastric In- 

 fusoria which is exhibited by the lower organized Vibriones of Miiller, 

 and of which Ehrenberg has composed his genera Vibrio, Spirillum, 

 and Bacterium ; and that, like the seminal Cercarite, it may be regarded 

 as an example from the lowest class of the animal kingdom having its 

 habitat in the interior of living animal bodies. Referring it, however, 

 provisionally, to the class Entozoa, in which it would indicate a new 

 order, its generic character may be thus given: 



Trichina. 

 Animal pellucidum, filiforme, teres, posticl- attenuatum : ore lineari. 

 ana discreto mtllo, tuba intestinali genitalibusque inconspicuis. (In vesic^ 

 externa, cellulosa, elastica, plerumque solitarium.) 



Trichina spiralis. Trick, minutissima, spiraliter, rarb flexuose, 

 incurva; capite obtuso, collo nullo, caudd attenuatdobtusd. {Vested 

 externd ellipticd, extremitatibus plerumque attenuatis elongatis.) 

 Hab. in hominis musculis (praeter involuntarios) per totum corpus 

 diffusa, creberrima. 



Mr. Owen further states that within about a fortnight of the former 

 case, a second body similarly affected had been brought into the dis- 

 secting-room of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital ; and some notes were 

 furnished l)y Mr. Paget, who first observed the worms in tlie Italian, 

 with regard to the cases of the two patients while living in the Ho- 

 spital. From these it appeared that both had died after long and de- 

 bilitating illness, producing great emaciation, unaccompanied, how- 

 ever, with any eruption on the skin, or any greater loss of muscular 

 power than would probably have arisen from the diseases of which 

 they died. The occurrence of two cases in the same dissecting- 

 room within so sln)rt a period of each other, and the recollection of 

 similar appearances being not unfrequently present in other bodies 

 dissected there, combined with an account published in the Medical 

 Gazette for February 2, 1833, of very small Cysticerci occuning in 

 tlie muscles of a subject at Guy's Hospital, which cannot but be con- 

 sidered referrible to the same cause, render it highly probable that a 

 sufficient number of observations will soon occur to elucidate this 

 curious disease. In two of the cases the emaciation was accompa- 

 nied by external, and in the third by internal, ulceration ; but no 

 connexion was traced between the worm and any of the symptoms 

 of the disease. 



In a portion of muscle placed, after it had reached a state of inci- 

 pient putrescence, in spirit of wine for thiee days, the worms, when 

 pressed out from their cy^ts, exhibited languid, but sufficiently evi- 



