204 



COCCIDIUM OVIFOEME. 



These nodules are so like pseudoplasmic deposits that we can 

 understand liow the first observers regarded and described them as such. 



FiGf. 106. — Coccidium oviforme, from the liver of the rabbit ( x 550). C-G, s 

 of spore-formation only observed in the free state. 



Carswell considered them to be tubercles, and Hake,'^ who was the 

 first to examine them more minutely, regarded them as carcinomata. 

 They were thought to have arisen from degeneration of the bile-ducts, 

 and to enclose numerous pus-corpuscles of peculiar form. ISTasse ^ 

 contradicted Hake's conclusion, and thought that the " pus-corpuscles " 

 should be regarded as abnormally altered epithelium. He compares 

 them to cartilage- cells, and urged that " the epithelium of the bile-duct 

 of sheep is sometimes found ossified, namely, when the sheep are in- 

 fested with Bistomum." 



Fig. 107 Liver of a' rabbit vfith Coccjrfi«m-nodules. 



The true nature of these bodies long remained uncertain, although 

 Eemak'^ pointed out the resemblance between these structures and the 

 Psorosperms just discovered by Joh. Miiller, and asserted their close 



1 "A treatise of varicose capillaries, as constituting the structure of carcinoma of the 

 hepatic ducts, with an account of a new form of pus globuli :" London, 1839. 



. ^ " XJeber die eif iirmigen Zellen der tuberkelahnlichen Ablagerungen in den Gallen- 

 giingen der Kaninohen," Mutter's Archivf. Anat. u, Physiol., p. 209 et seq., 1843. 



» " Diagnostische und Pf^lW^fi^f^^W^i^JJ^gg^^"' P- 235 : Berlin, 1845. 



