Volume 1

On animal and vegetable parasites of the human body : a manual of their natural history, diagnosis, and treatment / by Dr. Frederich Küchenmeister ; translated from the second German edition, by Edwin Lankester.

Friedrich Küchenmeister

Date:: 1857

Credit: On animal and vegetable parasites of the human body : a manual of their natural history, diagnosis, and treatment / by Dr. Frederich Küchenmeister ; translated from the second German edition, by Edwin Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$tionecl at that time under the name of hydatids, which were then, considered sometimes as enlarged and degenerated glands (Ruysch); sometimes as accumulations of pus and mucus mixed with serum (Piso, Malpighi, Boerhave, Haller); sometimes as the ends of blood-vessels which liad changed their nature (Spiegel, Bartholin, Diemerboock, Portal, Brandes, Grashuis); sometimes, soon after the discovery of the lymphatic vessels by Aselli in the seventeenth century, as enlarged lymphatic vessels or varices of these vessels (Wharton, Bidloo, Nuck, Lettsom, Cruickshank, and down to Sommering and Hufeland) ; and sometimes as tumours produced by the accumulation of serum between the laminse of the cellular tissue, which obliterated the vessel lying in their vicinity by pressure (Ruysch and Schacher) ; and lastly, as degenerated mucus-sacs (Tode). Although it may generally be difficult from these opinions amongst the learned surgeons of the Middle Ages to know, when they speak of hydatids, whether true hydatids or cystic worms were observed by them, yet in some cases it may be proved with certainty that the old surgeons really had cystic worms before them. Thus according to Moller (see 'Bibliothek for Laeger,^ July, 1856; 'Ueber die Entwickelung der Blasenwiirmer zu Bandwiirmern im Allgemeinen und liber die Eutw, des Cystic. tenuicolL zu T. tenuicoU. im Besonderen,^ &c.) Aretseus speaks of vesicles which, in paracentesis of the abdomen, stopped up the punctured opening and hindered the operation (a circumstance which would indicate the puncture of an Echinococcus-SRC with daughter-vesicles). R. Leuckart, however (see ' Die Blasenbandwiirmer und ihre Entwicklung,^ Giessen, 1856), has above all taken the trouble of collecting some of these very scattered materials. For this purpose, according to him, we should consult the celebrated compilation of Bonetus {' Sepulchretum sive Anatomia practica,^ Geneva, 1697), especially lib. iii, sect> xx, de cachexia, anasarca, &c., and sect, xxi, de ventri tumore, hydropse, and lib. iv, sect, iii, de tumoribus. There we shall find the case of a soldier infested with Cysticercus celluloses from Wharton (1. c., p. 1541), who was covered with Cysticerci {ylandul. adventiiicc, jjlane sance) under the skin of the arms and thighs (a case analogous to that observed by Stich in the Hospital of Romberg). Here also, as in Platerus (Obs., lib. iii, p. 635), we find indications of cases of Cysticercus ienuicollis in the liver and peritoneum of dropsical human bodies, and the occurrence of these tumours {Cysticerci) in apes and pigs was$