DISTOMA LANCEOLATUM. 187 



lars of wliicli we are indebted to that indefatigable lielmintlio- 

 logist Rudolf Leuckart, to whom the case was communicated by 

 Dr. Kichner, of Kaplitz in Bohemia. As this case is highly interest- 

 ing and instructive, I give an abstract of it, as follows :* — 



" Dr. Kichner' s patient was a young girl, the daughter of the 

 parish shepherd at Kaplitz, havmg been accustomed to look after 

 the sheep ever since she was nine years old. The pasture where 

 the animals fed was enclosed by woods, being traversed by two 

 water-dykes, and being, moreover, also supplied by ten little stag- 

 nant pools. These reservoirs harboured numerous amphibia and 

 molluscs (such as Lymnceus and Paludina), and the child often 

 quenched her thirst from the half-putrid water. Probably she also 

 partook of the watercresses growing in the ditches. At length her 

 abdomen became much distended, the limbs emaciated, and her 

 strength declined. Half a year before death she was confined 

 to her bed, being all the while shamefully maltreated by her step- 

 mother. Dr. Kichner only saw her three days before her death, 

 and ascertained that she had complained of pain (for several years) 

 over the region of the liver. A sectio cadaveris was ordered by the 

 Government, when (in addition to the external evidences of the 

 cruel violence to which the poor creature had been subjected) it was 

 found that she had an enormously enlarged hver, weighing eleven 

 pounds. The gall-bladder, which was very much contracted and 

 nearly empty, contained eight calculi and forty- seven specimens of 

 the Distoma lanceolatum, all of which were sexually mature." 



Considering the facts of this singular case, one can have no 

 difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that these parasites were 

 obtained from the girl's swallowing trematode larvse, either in 

 their free or in their encysted condition. Leuckart says it was not 

 possible to ascertain whether the parasites had any connection with 

 the gall-stones, or whether the two maladies, so to speak, were in- 

 dependent of each other ; yet this question might possibly have 



* " Die Meiiscliliclien Parasiteii." Erst. Bd., s. 608, et seq. 



