ENTOZOON-LIKE BODIES. 
159 
muscles . — From the foregoing observations it seems almost 
certain that these bodies are special organisms derived from 
organisms of a like kind, and that they did not originate 
within the body of the animal they inhabit. 
I have very recently succeeded in demonstrating the changes 
occurring in the minute mass soon after its entrance into the 
muscular fibre. The germinal matter undergoes division and 
subdivision within its envelope and the whole gradually in- 
creases in length and breadth. 
The demonstration of a fissure leading from the external 
surface of the fibre to its central axis, where the organism is 
situated, shows conclusively how the body reached the sarcous 
tissue, and renders it almost impossible to resist the inference 
that a minute germ, perhaps less than the of an inch 
in its smallest diameter, made its way through the sarcolemma 
into the sarcous tissue, and grew there into the remarkable 
structure described and figured. 
The smallest I have been able to demonstrate with absolute 
certainty is not more than the yJ^th of an inch in Ibngth. 
Another, a little larger, had already attained its peculiar form, 
and the little bodies within were less than the Toy o of an inch 
in diameter, but were already multiplying by division. The 
very minute particles represented in fig. 7 magnified with the 
ai *e probably these bodies at the earliest stage of existence. 
The difficulty of observing the earliest changes taking place 
in such a minute mass in the centre of an elementary fibre 
must necessarily be much increased by the circumstance of the 
multiplication of the muscular nuclei themselves in those cases 
in Which the bodies in question are observed. I have indeed 
seen many specimens which I might have fairly adduced as 
the earliest stage of the intramuscular existence of the or- 
ganism, but have refrained from figuring these because I could 
not positively affirm that they were not collections of three, 
four, or half a dozen muscular nuclei. 
All the evidence yet obtained is indeed strongly in favour 
of the view that one of the very large bodies figured is 
developed from a very minute mass as I have described, and 
it is probable that a vast number of these have made their way 
into many of the elementary fibres of the different muscles. 
The germs have no burrowing organs or hooklets, but from 
their extreme minuteness and motor power could easily make 
their way through the sarcolemma if they reached its surface. 
It is most probable that the germs enter the blood and perhaps 
may make their way directly from the cavity of the heart into 
its muscular walls, while others being carried to the capillary 
vessels of the muscles migrate into the elementary muscular 
fibres of various muscles of the system. Whether the germs 
