On cystic entozoa in the human kidney : with an illustrative case / by T. Herbert Barker.

  • Barker, T. Herbert (Thomas Herbert), 1814-1865
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On cystic entozoa in the human kidney : with an illustrative case / by T. Herbert Barker. 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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    1^ He further states, that Tasnia is common among the Abyssinians, Avho, it is well known, are accustomed to take uncooked animal food. 1 would notice, incidentally, that this part of our inquiry has an interesting though indirect bearing on the subject of the propagation of cholera, as suggested by the learned and indefatigable President of the Medical Society of London, Dr. Snow. From the facts I have already stated regarding the patient who came under my own care, it is worthy of observation that his diet has certainly been very peculiar. At the same time his wife, who has lived on the same diet, has had no symptoms of a similar character. This fact it is interesting to note, since, in one of the cases under Mr. Gay, a man and his wife were both simultaneously the subject of hydatids, as though from a common cause; and in the inferior animals grouped together, as the writer in the Medical Times observes, the hydatid disease gene- rally developes itself in the whole flock at the same time. On the supposition that the ova of certain forms of cystic ento- zoa are capable of leading, in the human subject, to the develop- ment of other forms of cystic growths, one might infer that this patient had ample opportunities of becoming impregnated with the Echinococcus, and might thus trace his disease to a dietetic source; but at the present time, and in the absence of further experiments, it would possibly be going too far to consider this matter otherwise than as a probable hypothesis. MIGRATIONS. However originating, it becomes an interesting question how the entozoa reach the different parts of the organism. Dr. Thom- son, to whom I have so often referred, enumerates three ways of migration :—1st, By being introduced into the bodies of animals by food or drink; 2d\y, by piercing the integuments or other tissues; and, 3dly, by piercing the membranes or parenchyma of organs entering the blood-vessels, travelling along them with the blood ; and ultimately, by piercing these coats, to gain other situations. The organs or tissues of the body where these entozoa are most frequently located in man, are the liver, the cellular tissue, the muscles, the chambers of the eye, and the abdominal cavity. Mr. Goodsir has related several cases, in which the acephalocyst was found in the peritoneal cavity, as well as others of the cystic entozoa. Thus situated, these cysts sometimes gain an enormous size ; but I think it an open question, whether the special forma of entozoa do or do not require special organs for their develop- ment. At all events, it is certain that all the mature entozoa, as the Cestoidea, require a larger cavity; and that it is only the immature or cystic variety that will exist in a close cavity.
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