AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 201 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



GENEAGENESIS IN THE HELMINTHES OR INTESTINAL 

 WORMS.* SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



The animals we have been treating of, up to the present, 

 are of interest to the ordinary reader as well as 

 to the naturalist. The living blossoms of a polypidom, 

 and the garland of a Stephanomia, are admired alike by 

 the child and the philosopher. We come now to speak 

 of very different beings, whose name even creates an 



* The French Academy at its sitting on the 22nd of March, 

 1852, offered the great prize of the physical sciences for the decision 

 in 1853, of the following question : — " To demonstrate by observa- 

 tions and experiment the mode of development of intestinal ivorms, 

 and of their passage from one animal to another, and to apply the 

 anatomical and physiological facts thus proved to the determination 

 of their natural affinities." The great difficulties which the ques- 

 tion presented, and the short period allowed for its solution left 

 some doubt as to the presence of competitors ; but two naturalists, 

 prepared for a long while, replied to the Academy's appeal. Yan 

 Beneden, professor of zoology in the University of Louvain, and 

 Kiichenmeister, a physician of Zittau, sent in essays ; that of the 

 first was a genuine work, where the history of Helminthes was 

 treated of in all its relations, and was accompanied by an atlas 

 containing nearly a thousand original figures ; that of the second 

 was a very important memoir, and was likewise accompanied by 

 plates. Upon a very extensive report which I made in the name 

 of a commission appointed to decide the merits, the Academy 

 awarded the prize to M. Van Beneden, and an honourable mention 

 to M. Kiichenmeister. It decided also that Yan Beneden's work 

 should be printed at its expense. It appeared under the title of 

 " Memoire sur les Yers intestinaux," 1858. 



