May 15,1925 
Egg-Producing Capacity of Ascaris lumbricoides 
981 
ovaries, and especially in the germinal 
zone, of the smaller and therefore 
presumably younger female (Ascaris 
B) was greater than in the larger speci¬ 
men (Ascaris A), while the number in 
the uteri of the younger worm was 
smaller and the total number of eggs 
in ovaries and uteri was slightly 
greater, is perhaps significant as indi¬ 
cating that in the older worm more eggs 
had matured and been deposited. 
The free end of the ovary is but l-25th of a line in 
diameter. A transversal section of the ovary 
shows the number of ova around the rachis to :be 
about 50 and their diameter to be about l-500th part 
of a line. Hence in the space of one line there will 
be 500 wreaths or stars of 50 eggs each, so affording 
25,000 ova. The length of each horn of the female 
organ is about 16 ft. or 2,304 lines, which for the two 
horns gives 4,608 lines. If the ova, therefore, were 
of the same diameter throughout, their number 
would amount to 25,000X4,608, but as they augment 
in size as they proceed from the ovary to the uterus, 
till at last they attain a diameter of l-60th of a line, 
they will not form more than 60 wreaths or 3,000 
eggs in one line within the uterus. Thus, sup- 
0-5m/7? 
Fig. 6 . —Ascaris lumbricoides. Longitudinal section of uterus 
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS OF OTHER 
INVESTIGATORS 
The figures obtained in these counts, 
26,000,000 and 27,000,000 as the total 
number of eggs in a female ascarid, are 
considerably lower than those obtained 
by Eschricht (footnote 3) and by 
Leuckart (footnote 5), namely 64,000,- 
000 and 70,000,000, respectively. 
Eschricht’s computations are as 
follows: 
posing the diameter of the eggs to increase propor¬ 
tionately throughout the length of the female 
organs, we may calculate the number of ova, on an 
average, at 25,000+3,000, or 14,000 in each line, giv- 
2 
ing a total number of eggs at 14,000 X 4,608, of Jcourse 
more than 64,000,000. 
Eschricht evidently assumes in these 
computations that there are still 50 
eggs in a cross section of the uterus 
as there were in the ovary, arranged 
around the rachis; this is indicated in 
his statement that the ova “will not 
