ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 129 
Davaine, Leuckart, Leisering, Roell, BfuckmLiller, equally 
admit the pathological influence of these worms, but it is M. 
Bollinger who has thoroughly established the direct correla¬ 
tion between these worms and the aneurisms. This hel¬ 
minth, before penetrating the digestive tube, is for some 
time a blood worm, inhabitating the dilatations of the artery, 
and there undergoes a metamorphosis, for on its first ap¬ 
pearance it is but a third of its full size, and, instead of pre¬ 
senting a coronet of sharp teeth, its head is ornamented with f 
an arrangement resembling the petals of a rose; it is in the 
larval state, and has rudimentary genital organs; when it 
arrives at its full development, after changing its skin, it 
leaves the aneurism, is carried along with the current of blood, 
and penetrates the intestine. 
These anterior mesenteric aneurisms differ slightly in their 
anatomical structure from ordinary aneurisms; they are 
formed by a thickening of the subperitoneal cellular tissue, 
with obliteration of the vessels of the part; the internal tunic 
is thickened and the middle hypertrophied; the tunic is some¬ 
times reabsorbed, and is always highly inflamed and altered; 
sometimes it has undergone fatty atheromatous or calcare¬ 
ous degeneration. In the interior there is ordinarily a clot of 
blood, an adherent thrombus of variable consistence, more 
or less filled with strongyli, obliterating to a greater or less 
degree the canal of the vessel, but always presenting a passage 
through the centre. Often this thrombus is prolonged into 
the artery on either side of the dilatation, and floats in the 
current of blood. 
This aneurismal thrombus increases in size by the adher« 
ence of coagula of fibrine. Under the influence of a cause, 
sometimes difficult to recognise later—for example, by too 
cold a draught of liquid, which produces a general shock of 
the system, or of an excess of food, provoking an overflow of 
blood—portions of the coagula or even fragments of the 
thrombus are detached and carried along by the circulating 
current, to become arrested in the ramifications of the artery, 
forming an embolism at some bifurcation. Now, the experi¬ 
ments of MM. Colin and Panum have proved that embolism 
of the mesenteric arteries produce a stagnation of blood in 
the interested portion of the intestine ; the mucous membrane 
particularly becomes gorged and admits exudations; the por¬ 
tion of the intestine seems paralysed and does not perform 
its functions. 
In consequence of the non-arrival of arterial blood through 
the embolism, we see in the neighbourhood of the choked 
vessel a great stagnation of venous blood with transudation of 
