90 FALSE PARASITES 



could carry on a parasitic existence in the interior 

 of the human intestine. •Unfortunately medi- 

 cal men have given their assistance to this non- 

 sense ; and I myself have seen one allowing 

 himself to be fooled by a patient with an eel, and 

 another with a frog. With such follies there are 

 only two ways of dealing — jest and scientific ex- 

 periment. The former has been done, and.many, 

 perhaps, are acquainted with the satirical tale in 

 which a medical man in recent times has castigated 

 a fool of this kind, who chattered about the pres- 

 ence of living frogs in the body of a patient, in 

 the same style as Dr. S. C. H. Windier (swindler) 

 once derided the infusorian theory of the process 

 of fermentation. But such remedies are not 

 thorough-going, and cannot effect a fundamental 

 cure. For the cure of these follies we are in- 

 debted to Berthold, of Littingen, and I here re- 

 produce literally his conclusions : 



1. All observations on living amphibia having 

 remained long in the human body, and acting as 

 the cause of long illnesses in it, are false. 



2. Eggs of amphibia, when swallowed, very 

 soon lose their power of development in the stom- 

 ach. (Dr. Kretschmar, of Stolpen, informed me 



