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558 EHRENBERG ON THE ORIGIN OF ORGANIC MATTER 
corpses without any worms, especially when we diligently look for them. 
We find them also as seldom in such abundance as we might expect 
from the apparent fecundity of these animals, which are not capable 
of any voluntary limit. There must therefore be great and insurmount- 
able difficulties for the development of the hundreds and thousands of 
eggs which are often found in each individual of these parasites. I 
would therefore not object to the older opinion, that the eggs of intestinal 
worms are propelled by the circulation of the fluids into all parts of the 
body, but develop themselves there only where the particular conditions 
requisite for this purpose are favourable. The smaller diameter of the 
finest vessels through which they have to pass does not appear to me 
to present any important difficulty, because these, as we see in every 
inflammation, become easily and quickly expanded as soon as they are 
irritated ; and these eggs may, as excretive bodies, like every body which 
is foreign to our organism, act in an irritative manner, and may be 
taken up by the embouchures of the absorbents and be propelled along 
with increased activity through them : that this is the case with mercury, 
pus, and other matters, has been already received as an observed fact *, 
It is even probable that the eggs of the Entozoa and their propulsion 
through the vascular system may be an important morbid matter hi- 
therto overlooked, and which causes a part of the pheenomena compre- 
hended under the name scrofula. In bodies which are particularly 
favourable to the development of worms there must necessarily be an 
innumerable quantity of secreted eggs of those parasites, which, if they 
are not expelled by the intestinal canal or by the prime vie, must, as 
foreign bodies, produce disorders. If the absorption takes place entirely 
or for the most part in the lymphatics, it would occasion their general 
or sole influence upon that system. Obstructions in the lymphatics, 
but especially in their reticular tissue, the glands, which lead to local 
congestions of lymph, inflammations, and morbid appearances of various 
kinds, become in this manner very easy of comprehension ; and these as- 
suredly deserve the attention of medical science, not as speculations but 
as realities. Thousands of eggs of intestinal worms, whose existence in 
many bodies cannot be denied, must perish, as they are rarely deve- 
loped in such great quantities, from the difficulty of their attaining the 
place and conditions favourable for their development ; while only some, 
very often none, ever actually attain those conditions. This relative 
proportion of the number of intestinal worms and of their eggs to the 
* Miiller (Physiologie, vol. i. p.17) alleges that Ehrenberg endeavours to 
weaken the generatio equivoca of intestinal worms, but proves nothing; and, I 
think, with reason; for, according to his view, the eggs are taken up by the 
lymphatic vessels and carried to all parts of the body. But how is that possible? 
They are evidently too large to enter into the lymphatics ; and how can they cir- 
culate in those blood-vessels which are only 0°00025 of an inchin diameter, and 
so reach the products of secretion, such as milk, yolk, &c.? For this must be 
supposed, since intestinal worms have been found in the foetus of mammalia and 
in hens’ eggs, &c.—W. F. 
