i6i 
authors whom he accuses of having failed to recognise an obvious 
fact The observation is due to BiLHARZ. It is true that Bilharz 
did not yet know how to interpret those bodies which we now describe 
as lateral-spined eggs; but this is of no importance as compared with 
the fact, that once he found one of these enigmatical bodies in the 
anterior part of the uterus of a female, the posterior part of which 
was filled with the ordinary ova. That tliere was no mistake 
possible may be gathered from the circumstance that BiLHARZ, on 
a later occasion, and after having discovered the same bodies’in the 
tissues of the liver and the rectum, emphatically repeats that ‘such 
a body was, though once only, but quite un¬ 
doubtedly, found in the uterus of a female 
worm, the posterior part of which contained 
the normal ova' (BILHARZ, 1852, pp. 74 and 75). Besides, 
Bilharz has proved too careful an observer to admit of any mistake 
on his part; as a matter of fact, many a recent ‘ discovery ’ with 
regard to Bilharzia and Bilharziosis may be found described in his 
paper when one takes tlie trouble to read it. 
If my memory does not quite fail me, I have in the course of 
years, myself seen several similar females; but considering the 
occurrence of both shapes of eggs in the same individual as anything 
but new, and not foreseeing either the importance the specimens 
would one day gain, I Have not separated them from the rest, and it 
is quite possible that one or the other may be found in the material 
which I have sent away from here to various places. I very much 
regret that at the present moment I cannot produce a specimen. It is 
a curious fact, of which we shall have to speak again later, that the 
portal veins very often contain only males ; the worms within recent 
years found at the post mortems in the Kasr el Aini Hospital, and kindly 
left to me by Dr. FERGUSON, were almost exclusively males ; in one 
of the last cases, e.g, there were 64 males but not a single female. 
I have, however, no doubt lliat sooner or later I shall be able to 
establish the accuracy of BiLHARZ’s observation by the production 
of an actual specimen. 
The occurrence of tcrminal-spined and lateral-spined eggs in one 
^od the same individual worm is one of the fundamental facts on 
"’hich my views rest; I wonder how Dr. SambON will explain it by 
bis theory. 
