410 HISTORICAL ACCOUN/r OF T^NIA SAGINATA. 



neighbourhood, it is very probable that it was quite unknown to the 

 earliest physicians and naturalists. Certainly it did not enter into the 

 minds of the first observers of Bothriocephalus — Thaddseus Dunus, in 

 Locarno (1592), and Gaspard Wolphius in Zurich — to identify their 

 worm^ with the tape- worm of the ancients ; although, after all, that 

 proves nothing more than that the specific knowledge of the parasites 

 was at that time extremely meagre and superficial. If they had had 

 opportunity to compare their worm with the genuine Tcenia, the 

 difference between the two parasites would not have escaped their 

 notice any more than it escaped that of the clinical physician, Felix 

 Plater of Basle, who, in his famous " Opus praxeos medicse" (1602), 

 mentions them for the first time as two different human tape-worms. 

 Plater's description is so expressive of the characteristics of this worm, 

 and of the then prevaihng views, that I cannot refrain from quoting 

 it here. " Per podicem," says Plater, ^ " corpora . . raro ejiciuntur 

 diversorum generum, e quibus unum fasciam quandam refert mem- 

 braneam, intestinorum tenuium substantiee similem, eorum longi- 

 tudinem adsequantem, minime tamen, uti ilia, cavam, sed digitum 

 transversum latam, quam latum Lumbricum appellant, rectius Taeniam 

 intestinorum, siquidem cum Lumbrico nullam habeat similitudinem, 

 nee uti Lumbricus vivat aut loco moveatur, sed tamdiu, donee nunc 

 integrum, magno impetu aut terrore patientis existimantis intestina 

 omnia sic procedere, Vel abruptum elabatur. In qua fascia plerumque 

 lineee nigrse transversse, spatio digiti ab invicem distantes, per totam 

 ipsius longitudinem, et ad formam vertebrarum in intervalUs iUis 

 extuberantes apparent. . . . Alias vero aliter formata ejusmodi taenia 

 longissima, veluti ex portionibus multis cohperentibus et qute ab 

 invicem abscedere possunt constare videtur, quas portiones, quum 

 cucurbitae semina quadrata nonnihil referant, cucurbitinum vermem 

 vocant. Qualis rarius integer, sed plerumque in plura frusta divisus 

 rejicitur ; qua singula privates vermes esse, cucurbitinos dictos, 

 crediderunt, licet tantum fasciae illius abrupta sint particula." 



A century passed without Plater's statements receiving any impor- 

 tant addition or correction. The two species of tape-worm which he 

 established were pretty generally accepted, and were usually called the 

 " species prima et secunda Plateri," but our knowledge of them was 

 hardly at all advanced till Andry published his investigations.^ Like 



' That it was a Bothriocepkahis that these physicians observed, can of course only be 

 inferred, but with some probability, from their statements. Thaddseus, for example, 

 ("Miscell. med.," cap. v.) describes the worm as " squamosus, instar serpentis, nisi 

 rectius geniculatus," which could scarcely apply to Tcenia. 



'' Loc. cit., t. ii. , " De anim. excretion." 



" " De la gfen^ration des vers dans le corps de I'homme " p. 51 et scq^, : Amster- 



dam, 1701 (Reprint). Digitized by Microsoft® 



