148 



5. Description of a Rare Entozoon from the Stomach of 

 the Dugong. By W. Baird, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 



(Annulosa, PL LVI.) 



In the Museum of the College of Surgeons there is a preparation 

 of an Ascaris from the stomach of the Dugong. In dissecting this 

 animal, Professor Owen discovered several specimens of an intestinal 

 worm, which he named Ascaris halichoris. The preparation was 

 made in 1831, and the 'Catalogue of the Physiological Series of 

 Comparative Anatomy' was published by the College in 1833. 

 About the same period, but in a different part of the world, Riip- 

 pell found the same species of worm in the stomach of the same 

 species of animal. He very briefly notices them in describing a 

 Dugong which he found in the Bed Sea, but merely mentions that 

 these Entozoa "were found in a clustered glandular apparatus in 

 the stomach, and were 5 inches long." His description of this 

 Dugong was sent in a letter to Dr. Sommering, and is dated from 

 the Island of Dahalac on the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, in 

 the month of January, 1832. This paper was published in the 

 first volume of the 'Museum Senckenbergianum,' in 1834. In the 

 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' in 1838, there is an ela- 

 borate paper by Professor Owen, descriptive of the principal viscera 

 of the Dugong ; and in this paper he again notices these worms, and 

 there mentions that they were originally found in a remarkable 

 glandular apparatus situated near the cardiac extremity of the 

 stomach. In the article Entozoa in Tod's ' Cyclopaedia of Anatomy 

 and Physiology,' the Professor again alludes to them in reference 

 to its peculiar digestive apparatus, showing the presence of a caecum, 

 which arises from the upper portion of the intestine. This organ he 

 considers a kind of accessory to the digestive apparatus, and of 

 rather a peculiar nature. "The second example," he says, "of an 

 accessory digestive gland occurs in a species of Ascaris infesting the 

 stomach of a Dugong : here a single elongated caecum is developed 

 from the intestine at the distance of half an inch from the mouth ; 

 and is continued upwards, lying by the side of the beginning of the 

 intestine, with its blind extremity close to the mouth ; from the 

 position where the secretion of this caecum enters the intestine, it 

 may be regarded as representing a rudimental liver." The next 

 mention we find of this worm is in the ' Memoires de PAcadeinie 

 Imperiale de St. Petersbourg.' In the 7th volume of the Memoires 

 (the 5th volume of the ' Sciences Naturelles '), Brandt has published 

 a paper entitled ' Symbolse Sirenologicae,' illustrating the natural 

 history of the Rhytina borealis or stelleri, a specimen of a Cetacean 

 allied to the Dugong, in which he mentions the fact that Steller 

 had found a number of white worms in a gland attached to the 

 stomach of that animal ; and in a note to his paper he says, " they 

 are similar to those found by Owen and Riippell in the Dugong." 

 Lastly, Diesing, in his valuable work, 'Systema Helminthiurn,' 

 1851, apparently not aware of Professor Owen having named this 

 Ascaris, enumerates it, along with a number of others, amongst his 



