Parasites of Muscular and Connective Tissue. 42 1 



polecat, fox, horse, ape, Guineapig, rabbit, coon, marten, bear, 

 hamster, hippopotamus, mole, hedgehog, crow and goose. Many 

 other animals may be infested by experimental feeding of trichi- 

 nous flesh and are therefore possible hosts. On the other hand 

 they have never been found in invertebrate nor cold-blooded ani- 

 mals, and many alleged cases of trichinosis in mammals and birds 

 have been shown to be due to embryos of worms of entirely differ- 

 ent species. The anguillula found in decaying beets and tur- 

 nips (Schacht), and in the intestines of animals eating them raw, 

 is quite distinct, and does not invade the muscles. The vinegar 

 eel (anguillula aceti) has been mistaken for trichina. A flesh 

 worm found in the mole (Vogel, Herbst) could not be made to 

 infest pigs (Virchow, Fiedler), and is really an ascaris embryo 

 (l/cuckart). Nematodes found in earth worms were rhabditis or 

 spiroptera larvse (I^euckart). Flesh worms in the large water 

 newt (triton cristatus) were anguillulae. Worms found in the 

 muscular tissues of hens, owls and other birds, and of eels, have 

 proved not to be trichinae. In cats, rats and mice the larvae of 

 the ollulanus tricuspis encysted in the diaphragm, liver or lungs 

 have often been mistaken for trichinae. 



It should be added that though an animal is unfitted to be a 

 host of the trichina in its larval encysted stage it does not follow 

 that it cannot be transferred through the body of that host. Thus 

 Colin fed fish and reptiles with trichinous meat and produced 

 trichinosis in other animals by feeding them on the faeces of the 

 animals first named. (Compt. Rend. Ixvi, p. 31). 



Trichina Spiralis : Trichinella Spiralis. This is the single 

 authenticated species of the Genus : Trichina (trix hair) . 



The Sexually Mature Trichinae inhabit the intestines, large 

 and small, and if expelled in the liquid faeces soon perish. They 

 are scarcely visible to the naked eye, the male being 1.4 to 1.6 

 mm. long, 40 /i broad ; ihe. female 3 to 4 mm. long and 60 /x broad. 

 The anterior half of the body gradually tapers to the head, while 

 the posterior half retains about the same thickness throughout. 

 Mouth and anus are both terminal, the fdrmer being small, 

 round and smooth. The anus in the male is flanked on the two 

 sides by two papillary, copulatory projections, and the everted 

 cloaca serves as a penis. \In the female the vulva opens about 

 the limit of the anterior fourth of the body. The alimentary 



