510 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 



munieation instead, which was read by Professor 

 iJaskerviUe. 



C. M. Joyce, 

 Secretary 



THE HELMINTHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF 'WASHINGTON 



The third regular meeting of the society was 

 held in the zoological division of the Public 

 Health and Marine Hospital Service on January 

 6, 1911, Dr. Stiles acting as host and Mr. Crawley 

 as chairman. 



Dr. Pfender presented a paper entitled "A 

 Tew Brief Remarks on Medico-zoological Nomen- 

 clature, with Special Emphasis on the Correct 

 Terminology of the Protozoon of Syphilis." The 

 paper points out that persons engaged in pre- 

 paring new material are in duty bound to use aU 

 means that might aid in a clear and correct 

 presentation of their subject. In the medico-zool- 

 ogical field, failure to appreciate this fact has 

 resulted in burdening the literature with numerous 

 erroneous names the errors being due to medical 

 men and zoologists alike. 



In the case of the organism of syphilis, the 

 original errors were made by zoologists, but since 

 being corrected have been persisted in by medical 

 men and other scientific men. Schaudinn in 1905 

 reported the discovery of an organism which he 

 believed to be the cause of syphilis. Believing 

 that this belonged in the same genus as Spiro- 

 cJiCBta pUcatilis Ehrenberg, 1834, he proposed for 

 it the name Spirochcete pallida, adopting the 

 emended spelling of Cohn, 1872, for the generic 

 name. About this time Stiles called attention to 

 the fact that Cohn had emended the spelling with- 

 out reason or authority, hence the correct name 

 was Spirochata. The same year, 1905, Vuillemin 

 decided that the organism did not belong in the 

 genus Spirochata and proposed the name Spiro- 

 nema, a change which was accepted by Schaudinn. 

 Vuillemin, however, had not used due care in 

 selecting his generic name, which was preoccupied 

 by Meek, in 1864, for a genus of molluscs, and 

 also, erroneously, by Klebs, in 1892, for a genus 

 of flagellates. Being apprised of this fact, Schau- 

 dinn proposed the generic name Treponema. This 

 name did not come to the attention of Stiles and 

 Pfender in time to prevent their proposing the 

 generic name Microspironema, this last name be- 

 coming a synonym under the law of priority. The 

 correct name of the organism of syphilis is there- 

 fore Treponema pallidum Schaudinn, 1905, and 

 not the popular Spirochceta pallida. 



The conclusions to be drawn from this case 

 are: (1) it is mandatory that the proper classi- 

 fication of an organism be determined before 

 naming it; (2) every effort should be made to 

 ascertain whether a contemplated name is pre- 

 occupied before publishing it; (3) when errors 

 of nomenclature have been made, it is the duty 

 of medical men and other scientists to avoid their 

 repetition, regardless of the popularity of the 

 names; (4) the diflficulty of complying with these 

 conditions and with the rules of nomenclature 

 indicates the need of a reform, and this may 

 perhaps be found in the selection of a tribunal 

 of authorities to which proposed names must be 

 submitted for approval and by which the status 

 of names may be settled. 



Mr. Hall presented two short notes on gid. The 

 first one, accompanied by the exhibition of a 

 couple of skulls of sheep dying of gid, called 

 attention to the fact tnat the skulls of yearling 

 sheep and lambs are very thin, and that in the 

 case of sheep having gid, this thinness is in- 

 creased in the vicinity of the parasite, commonly 

 resulting in actual perforation of the skull in a 

 number of places. The natural thinness and the 

 thinness and perforation resulting from gid make 

 it easy for dogs to get at the parasite and become 

 infected. Experiment shows that they do this 

 either by crushing and eating practically the en- 

 tire skull, or by inserting the tongue in the 

 foramen magnum and licking out the brain. 



The second note dealt with a case of unusual 

 delay in the development of the adult tapeworm, 

 MuUiceps multiceps, in the dog after feeding the 

 larval gid bladderworm from the brain of the 

 sheep. In this case the dog was killed 82 days 

 after the feeding, and examined post mortem, the 

 feces up to this time having shown no tapeworm 

 eggs or proglottids. Five specimens of the gid 

 tapeworm were found in the dog, the largest 

 having eggs in the uterus, but with no oncho- 

 spheres as yet developed. The two smaller speci- 

 mens were less than half an inch long. The dog 

 had been on a diet limited to salt meats or cooked 

 beef and bread, and had had no opportunity to 

 acquire infection with any tapeworm except 

 Dipylidium. The usual period of development of 

 the gid tapeworm is given by various authorities 

 as from four to eight weeks. The experiment 

 indicates the unreliability of conclusions based on 

 negative fecal examinations and statements as to 

 the usual time required for the development of a 

 parasite. 



