214 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OP DUBLIN-. 



of hydatids. In 1 804 Laennec gave the name Acephalocyst to the so- 

 called hydatids, which are found containing no scolices or heads at all. 

 These organisms are regarded by Kiichenmeister as the product of six- 

 hooked cestode embryos, the growth of which has proceeded without 

 hindrance, but which, nevertheless, have remained barren, never having 

 attained to proliferation and the production of embryos.* 



Attached by separate pedicles to the great omentum of the Calli- 

 thrix monkey were four whitish globular bladders, nearly the size of 

 plovers' eggs, transparent enough to allow of the white anterior part of 

 a worm to be seen coiled up inside them. When the outer envelope, 

 formed of condensed connective tissue, was carefully snipped, a second 

 interior bladder still remained, the tail vesicle of the cystic worm. The 

 worm when removed from its envelope measured, from the head to the 

 end of the emptied and collapsed bladder, two inches and three- 

 eighths ; the anterior end was furnished with a round knob, wrinkled 

 transversely, having a cephalic pit in its centre, from which was made 

 to protrude a head armed with suctorial pores, and a double crown of 

 hooks. The liver had several cysticercal capsules in a state of degene- 

 ration ; their locality was indicated by excavations containing a granular 

 atheromatous debris enclosed in a condensed areolar capsule. These 

 marked the graves of Cysticerci, which, unsuccessful in obtaining ad- 

 mission into the body of an appropriate host, after remaining for some 

 time fully developed as larvae, began to degenerate, and eventually cre- 

 tified within the shrivelled capsule. Except in their cysticercal condi- 

 tion, Tapeworms are not very prevalent in the Quadrumana, in which 

 respect these latter have the advantage of man, whose bodies are in- 

 vaded by ten species of mature Taeniae. The liver is especially the pri- 

 mary seat of encysted worms, more because the blood of the intestinal 

 veins, into which the ova find their way, must pass through that gland, 

 than from any power or inclination on the part of the animal to select 

 that organ for its temporary habitation ; accordingly, in order of parts 

 in man infested by hydatids, according to Rokitansky, the liver holds 

 the first rank, followed by the sub-peritoneal areolar tissue, the omen- 

 tum, the muscles of the heart, brain, spleen, kidneys, lungs, bones ;f 

 and, according to Davaine, the liver itself offers more cases of hydatids 

 than all the other organs put together .% 



In the Russian rabbit, one bunch of capsules invested in a common 

 envelope of cellular membrane was attached to the gastro-hepatic 

 omentum, and another bunch was situated between the urinary bladder 

 and rectum. The Eodentia have long been known to be a favourite 

 host of the larval forms of Tapeworms. Kiichenmeister considers that 

 it is not improbable the Mosaic prohibition of certain kinds of flesh for 

 food was founded upon a knowledge of the parasitic diseases it would 



* "Man. of Parasites," Syd. Soc, vol. i., p. 230. 



t "Path. Anat," p. 361. 



% " Traite des Entoz.," p, 375. 



