318 ENTOZOA. 



worm in man, under tlie title of Ascaris alata. This catalogue has 

 been constantly referred to by Dujardin, Diesing, and other sytema- 

 tic entozoologists, comparatively few of them having, it would seem, 

 had access to Dr. Bellingham's more extended account of this para- 

 site given in the first volume of the " Dublin Medical Press" (JSTo. 7, 

 Feb. 20th, 1839). One is led to make this inference from the 

 doubts which some have cast upon the very existence of the worm ; 

 although others, with more candour, suppose the species has merely 

 been mistaken. Thus, Kiichenmeister (" Parasiten," s. 464, in 

 Lankester's edit., vol. ii., p. 100) says : " The Ascaris alata, found 

 in the small intestine of a man, is probably only a young individual 

 of one of the long-known Nematoda, if, indeed, it he a luorm at all ! 

 (The itahcs are mine.) This statement is reproduced by Hulme in 

 his Enghsh edition of Moquin-Tandon's " Elements of Medical 

 Zoology" (p. 341) ; and the French author himself evidently shares 

 the doubt of other people. Dujardin (" Helminthes," p. 156) admits 

 the species, as does also Diesing (" Systema Helminthum," p. 175), 

 but the latter unluckily adds the following very significant sugges- 

 tion : — " An Ascaris lumhricoides capitis epidermide emphesematice 

 inflata?" Dr. Leidy of Philadelphia admits J., alata among his 

 Entozoa hominis without comment (" Smithsonian Contrib." for 

 April, 1853) ; but Weinland, of Frankfort, in his list, prefixes the 

 species with a note of interrogation, observing, also, that it has been 

 " once" found in Ireland (" Essay on Tapeworms," p. 88). It is 

 quite clear, therefore, that these authors entertain no belief as to 

 Ascaris mystax being a human parasite, because those who doubt- 

 fully accept Bellingham's Ascaris alata do so under the impression 

 that whatever it is, it is quite distinct from the common Ascaris 

 of the cat. The evidence which I shall now adduce is quite con- 

 clusive, and ought, once for all, to clear up the mystery. 



Dr. Bellingham, in his paper {he. cit.) " On an Undescribed 

 Species of Human Intestinal Worm," remarks that there are three 

 species of ascaris infesting man {I.e., he includes the A. lumhricoides 

 and A. vermicularis, the latter being now better known as an 



