THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVES. 



JANUARY, 1864. 



RECENT DISCOVERIES IN ENTOZOOLOGY. 



{With a Coloured Plate.) 



It cannot have escaped the attention of any well-informed 

 reader that the subject of Entozoa, or internal parasites, is 

 daily assuming greater importance ; and this, of course, not so 

 much on account of the very curious natural history phenomena 

 which these singular animals exhibit, as on account of the 

 strange part they play in the production of suffering and 

 disease, alike as regards ourselves and the animal creation in 

 general. In the pages of the Intellectual Observer, one of 

 our contributors (Dr. Cobbold) has supplied us with many in- 

 teresting facts respecting certain parasitic forms which infest 

 birds, beasts, and fishes ; but he has not, at present, said much 

 about the entozoa, whose special prerogative it is to take up 

 their abode in the human body. We have, however, lying 

 before us an important work bearing on this subject, as well 

 as a small brochure, by an author whose name is probably known 

 to some of our readers.* In the larger work, which is as yet 

 incomplete, the author enters very minutely into the structure, 

 mode of reproduction, and general economy of the human 

 parasites, dwelling more particularly on those species which 

 produce fatal results. 



Instructive as it might be, it is scarcely necessary to take 

 into consideration the various steps by which the earlier ento- 

 zoological observers arrived at the conviction that the little 

 watery cysts, or hydatids, found in man were in reality animals ; 

 but we cannot allow the present opportunity to pass without 

 rendering a tribute of homage to those recent investigators and 

 discoverers in this department of science, who have, frequently 

 at considerable risk to their own personal comfort, demon- 

 strated the true source and nature of these lowly organized 

 beings. To Dr. Kuchenmeister, above all others, this recog- 

 nition is due, and it redounds greatly to the credit of Leuckart 

 (who, at the present hour, is legitimately placed at the head of 

 continental helminthologists), that he has, in the writings quoted 



* " Die menschlichen Parasiten und die von ihnen herriihrenden Krank- 

 heiten." Yon Eudolf Leuckart. Erster Band. Liepsig, 1863. 



" Die neuesten Entdeckungen uber men3chliche Eingeweidewurmer und deren 

 Bedentung fur die Gesundheitspflege." Conyers. Jahrb. 1863. 



VOL. IV. — NO. VI. D D 



