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Scientific Memoirs by
many large ovoid ciliated monads ( ? Trichomonas) differing from the commoner form
(Cercomonas). Larger infusorial species have been found in the cœcum.
No. 2.—A small animal, with parasites being much injured, was killed. Organs of
chest and abdomen of healthy aspect. The intestines contained a greenish pulpy food-
mass and were wholly free of entozoa or ova, nor were monads found in mucus of duo-
denum, jejunum, or ileum.
No. 3.—A small rat sickened and died, with hæmatozoa to the last. Body emaciated,
heart and lungs of normal aspect, a small hydatid in the liver, no ova. The spleen
elements normal: kidneys healthy-looking: stomach and intestines thin-walled, thin
f æ c e s
present, a single worm (Echinorhynchus) in the small gut. No monads in the
duodenal mucus.
In the next three animals the hæmatozoon had disappeared shortly before decease.
No. 4.—Pregnant female, not injured, non-febrile; became weak and died 6 days after
capture, with sores; no visible cause of death. Parasites in liver and intestines as found
in non-infected rats. The blood of two fœtuses free from hæmatozoa.
No. 5. —Died 7 days after disappearance of the organisms. Aspect of blood not
peculiar; coagulation and rigor mortis quick: viscera normal; ova in the liver; spleen
unchanged : the feet œdematous, no bacilli in the serum there.
No. 6. —Died 7 days after the gradual cessation of blood-infection. Emaciated, tail
necrosed; at autopsy only wasting of the viscera.
Amongst rats always free from blood-contamination, so far as known, there was one
autopsy with intestinal entozoa and ova in the liver as in No. 4 above: and another
with the liver crammed with ova and no entozoa, the blood charged with/ leucocytes
and plasm-clumps: in two other examples ova in the liver and numerous monads in
the intestinal mucus.
Surgeon-Major Lewis' account of the rat hæmatozoon being easily access-
ible, it is not needful for me to offer a new description of it. Dr. Crookshank
has added two other characters, namely, a spine-like process at the hinder thicker
extremity and a lateral longitudinal membrane; remarking also that the flagel-
lum pertains to the front or advancing end of the organism, thus as in the in-
fusoria generally acting as a tractellum and not as a propelling means or pul-
sellum. These features I have been able to see and confirm.
The hæmatozoon should be examined not only in its fresh active state but
as well after exposure to the fumes of osmic acid (which kills without distort-
ing), and after dessication and staining as done in Bacterial research: for
each method furnishes useful data.
When, as usual, tolerably numerous in the layer of fresh-drawn blood,
the parasites seem to be diffused and are readily detectible through means of
the peculiar twirling motion of the red discs in their proximity; when but few
exist, a patient or repeated scrutiny of the blood is needed; the aspects are the
same when few or many are present. As the material of those organisms, like
that of bacteria, resists the action of acids and alkalies sufficiently concentrated
to destroy obscuring red discs, a measurement of their total number is best
made after drying the specimens of blood, and before staining exposing them