408 ENTOZOA. 



Copenhagen the haddock is not eaten in summer owing to its con- 

 taining too many of these parasites. There is no reason, therefore, 

 for surprise at the circumstance that the patient in question in the 

 course of two years passed one thousand of these worms, and that 

 the deception was carried on for so long a time." 



The contents of the second bottle are next referred to, with less 

 particularity ; and I shall immediately have occasion to revert to 

 them in my description of the next spurious entozoon, namely, 

 the Dijplosoma crenata of Farre. Meantime, let it be also noticed 

 that Schneider subsequently adds : " But if any doubt could be 

 entertained as to a deception in this case, none whatever can attach 

 to the contents of the third bottle. This (latter) contains round, 

 tolerably -firm, vesicular bodies, which passed through the catheter 

 when introduced into the bladder. Mr. Barnet regarded these 

 bodies as the ova of the worm, and Rudolphi as ' concrementa 

 lymphatica.^ But it is clear beyond all dispute that they are the 

 ova of a fish of which they exhibit every distinctive character, the 

 facetted outer membrane covering the cells of the membrana granu- 

 losa, beneath which is the shagreen-like coat, and, lastly, the vitellus 

 with its large oil globules." 



Such a complete expose as the above has seldom been met 

 with, and it is not a little singular that the deception should 

 have remained so long undiscovered. Some little blame, indeed, 

 naturally attaches itself to those of our countrymen who had 

 previously examined these worms ; blame or discredit, at least, 

 in so far as they failed to recognize the true character of these 

 structures. For my own part, I may say, that when some httle 

 time ago I examined (with the naked eye only) the worms still pre- 

 served in the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, I observed 

 that there were no specimens in the bottle which could be referable 

 to the Filaria piscium, and although the specimens were stated in 

 the Museum Catalogue to be examples of Spiroplera hominis, they 

 were, in truth, only the long " concrementa lymphatica" which 

 Farre has minutely investigated, and, unfortunately, has described 



