70 , EELWOEMS. 



fibre. Gradually the capsule becomes thickened by the deposi- 

 tion of calcareous matter. One can feel the gritty-like bodies 

 when one cuts a piece of meat full of trichinEe with a knife. 

 The young asexual muscle spirales can remain in this position 

 any length of time. But if the diseased flesh is eaten by a car- 

 nivorous animal, the gastric juice dissolves the cyst, and the freed 

 worm becomes sexually mature in the intestines in a few days, 

 the sexual organs (fig. 2.5, d, T and vd) having been partly formed 

 whilst in the muscle. Man, by eating this diseased pork, con- 

 tracts this dangerous complaint, the worms from the cysts breed- 

 ing in his intestines and migrating to his muscles. The danger 

 is when the young worms pass through the intestinal walls 

 into the muscle : they, by so doing, produce violent inflamma- 

 tion, which may be fatal, and intense pains result, similar to 

 those occasioned by rheumatism. 



The way Trichinosis is said to be partly spread is by the 

 agency of rats. Eats are known to sufler severely from T. 

 spiralis. Pigs greedily devour any dead rats they can get 

 hold of, and thus take the disease. How many rats have we 

 seen given to the pigs in farmyards and elsewhere ! It is a 

 common practice, and one by which the life-cycle is partly 

 kept going. 



Migrations may take place in the rat itself : rats, by eating 

 other dead ones, also keep the worms on the increase, tending of 

 course to the chances of pigs taking the disease, and thus con- 

 veying the germs to man, Tlie number of ova produced by 

 one worm is said to be between 10,000 and 15,000. 



EeLWORMS or AxnUILLDTjID.E. 



Eelworms are free-living Nematodes of small size. Some livo 

 in or on plants as parasites, and cause various diseases and 

 abnormal growths in plant tissues. Others livo in decaying 

 matter as saprophytes ; many may often be found in decaying 

 roots. In the outer decaying layers of liop-roots Eelworms are 

 sometimes found, and at one time they were supposed to account 



