21 
occur, increase for a time, and then gradually diminish, to appear again and again. 
The patient is reduced by diarrhoea, becomes emaciated, and grows anaemic and weak, 
but the appetite is usually preserved. Thus it happens that the victims of this dis- 
ease are frequently reduced so low that their life is dispared of, yet they gradually 
recover and become apparently almost well. By and by, however, relapse occurs, 
and the same process is repeated again and again, ground being lost on each occasion, 
until at length, worn out by exhaustion, the patient after many years of illness dies. 
Whether any fully recover is not stated, or whether a change of locality is attended 
by continuous convalescence is not yet known. Recovery after becoming the victim 
of Distoma hepaticum [0. sinensis'] must at best be problematic. When in an affected 
locality a case of enlargement of the liver and diarrhoea presents itself, careful exam- 
ination of the feces is generally rewarded by finding the ova of the Distoma. 
Many of these patients are troubled with skin diseases, but being of a poor class 
and living in a more or less filthy condition the skin disease may have no connection 
with the diseased liver. 
Treatment. — No specific treatment; remove patient to noninfected 
area, or if kept at home avoid further infection and give nourishing 
food. Salol has recently been reported as effective in liver-fluke dis- 
ease in sheep, but the results obtained are not yet published in 
sufficient detail to permit of a satisfactory opinion. 
Family FASCIOLIDiE. 
Grenus FASCIOLA « Linneeus, 1768. 
Generic diagnosis. — Fasciolidse: Body quite large, broad, and fiat; the anterior 
portion differentiated into a conical cephalic cone, and usually quite well defined 
from the broader, flatter, leaf-like portion. Skin provided with strong spines. Aceta- 
bulum near base of cephalic cone, and of about the same size as the oral sucker. 
Intestine with well-developed pharynx, short esophagus, and long intestinal ceca; 
the latter extend to the extreme aboral pole of the body, and are provided with 
numerous long lateral and fewer and shorter median branches; these branches may 
branch secondarily. Excretory system highly developed. Genital pore median at 
base of cephalic cone, and anterior of ventral acetabulum. Copulatory organs 
present, genital glands about in the middle of the body. Male organs: Testicles 
side by side or one diagonally posterior of the other, both caudad of the ovary 
and transverse vitelloduct, and profusely branched. Female organs: Ovary lateral 
of median line, anterior of transverse vitelloduct, posterior of acetabulum, pro- 
fusely branched. Receptaculum seminis absent; Laurer’s canal present. Vitel- 
laria very profusely developed, extending from base of cephalic cone to extreme 
aboral pole, and occupying nearly the entire posterior portion of body, especially the 
margins except the portion occupied b}'' the testicles, ovary, and uterus; uterine coils 
form a rosette between testicles and acetabulum. Eggs not especially numerous, but 
large, with development after oviposition. 
Habitat. — Liver of mammals, especially herbivorous animals. 
Type species. — Fasciola hepatica Linnaeus, 1758, of ruminants. 
« Synonyms. — Fasciola Linmeus, 1758; Planaria Goeze, 1782 (not Mueller, 1776); 
Distoma Retzius, 1782 (not Savigny, 1816); Distoma {Cladocoelium) Dujardin, 1845; 
Fasciolaria Anonymous, 1845; Distomum Diesing, 1850; Cladocalium Pontallie, 1853; 
Distomum [Fasciola] Leuckart, 1863; Cladocoelium (Dujardin) Stossich, 1892; Phasci- 
ola Wilder, 1894. 
