658 



DESCRIPTION OF T^NIA NANA. 



Fig. 341. — Head of Tcenia nana, 

 ■with retracted ros.tellum ( x 100). 

 (A.) An isolated hook ( x 600). 



case of a boy who had died from meningitis, it was in this instance 

 found in countless numbers in the duodenum. ^ "We owe our know- 

 ledge of it to V. Siebold, who has published the communications made 



to him by Bilharz, along with a drawing 

 of the anterior end of the body, in the 

 above-quoted memoir. But as we have 

 already mentioned in another connec- 

 tion, the account is unfortunately very 

 insufficient, so that it would be difficult 

 to recognise the worm from it. All the 

 more do I rejoice that in the above 

 diagnosis, and the following statements, 

 I am able to offer the results of an inde- 

 pendent investigation. The specimens 

 which were placed at my disposal came 

 from Bilharz himself. I received them 

 through the kindness of Professor Glaus 

 from Dr. Markusen, and partly also from 

 Professor Welcker in Halle, who most 

 willingly sent me a number of duplicates from the collection of Egyptian 

 Helminths presented by Bilharz to the Anatomical Museum in Halle. 

 In the largest of my specimens the lengch of the worm is 15 mm. 

 (Bilharz mentions one of six and the other of ten lines in length.) 

 The head is almost one-half larger than the adjacent neck, whose 

 separate joints can only be distinguished at some distance. I always 

 found the rostellum in a retracted condition. The hooks consist, just 

 as in the cystic tape-worms, of a claw and two roots, of which the 

 anterior one is very thick, and the posterior more slender, as is also 

 often the case in other Cysticercoid Toenice.^ The claw is slender, 

 and has a sharp point, by which it is easily distinguished from the 

 equally long anterior root.^ All the hooks are of exactly the same 



' Spooner indeed thinks that he has observed T. nana in America (Amer. Jomm. Med. 

 Sci., Jan. 1873), and that in a young man, who, in consequence of the worm, exhibited 

 symptoms quite similar to those caused by the presence of a large-jointed tape-worm. 

 But the diagnosis appears somewhat uncertain and suspicious. Perhaps the parasite be- 

 longed to the following species, which, as we shall see, is indigenous to America. 

 [Helllch has recently obtained T. nana in numbers from a girl seven years of age in 

 Belgrade. I have had the opportunity of examining some of these specimens, and thus 

 not only of confirming the diagnosis, but also of correcting some of my former statements 

 regarding the species. — K. L.] 



^ Bilharz's expression " hamuli bifidi " (v. Siebold, loc. cit. ) is probably due to his er- 

 roneous interpretation of this anterior root-process as a second claw. 



' This is the case not only in the related tape-worms of our mice and shrews, but 

 also in Stein's Cysticercoid from Tenebrio, and in a number of TcenicB from birds ; regard- 

 ing the latter see Krabbe, " Bidrag til Kundskab cm Fuglenes Bandelorme," Tab. viii., 



ix, Kjiibenhavn, 1869. Digitized by Microsoft® 



