Medical Officers of the Army of India.
39
Place the morsel of tissue in a shallow glass tray of water under a simple
microscope. Then slit the tumour with a fine knife under water, and press out
its contents with the flat of the blade. By a little teazing of the cheesy mass,
it is then quite easy to separate the little worm, which is quite large enough to
be easily visible under a power of eight or ten diameters.
I he tumours will be found scattered over the whole length of the intestine'
but become more numerous as one descends, and are most plentiful of all in the
cœcum and upper part of the colon, ceasing to be found about that part of the
large intestine where the nodular dung commences to be formed. Below this
I have not found them, and I have not as yet positively demonstrated their
presence in the stomach, though, from some appearances met with in the absomum
of one carcase that I have examined, I am inclined to believe that they will ulti-
mately be found to occasionally encyst themselves in that organ.
The little worms are enclosed in a sort of cyst, which is especially easily
demonstrable in the smaller tumours, and, in addition, there is a sort of second
cyst to all, formed by inflammatory infiltration of the surrounding tissues. In the
larger tumours the worm itself and its proper cyst forms but a very small propor-
tion of the contents, by far the greater bulk being made up of thick cheesy mate-
rial, the greenish colour of which clearly shows it to consist of altered blood clot.
In the very largest it will nearly always be found that the worm has escaped, and
yet another category will be found, of medium size, in which the worm has also
escaped, but which differ from worm-holding tumours of the same size by their
dark, brown colour, and shotty feel. These are tumours in the course of absorp-
tion, and, in some, the addition of dilute acid will demonstrate the fact that their
contents have undergone calification. The natural course of events lies in the
direction of absorption of th contents of the tumour, or their reduction to cal-
careous nodules and recovery ; but when the health of the host is too far under-
mined to admit of this, or when, perhaps, there is some special septic infection
of the puncture made by the worm, the tumour will break down, and leave a small,
circular, undercut ulcer. This was the case in nearly all the larger tumours
found in the first carcase examined at Shillong, and, in spite of their individually
small size, their large numbers were quite sufficient to account for the dysenteric
symptoms that ushered in the animal's death.
The worm found within the tumours is sexually immature, and differs
entirely in appearance from the adult, the mouth parts never attaining adult
characters, as is done by S. tetracanthum. In the larger ones, about the middle
of the body, may be made out a spindle-shaped mass of protoplasm, which is the
rudiment of the generative gland. The description of them, given below, is
from Curtice : —
"From 0.23 mm. upwards. The largest found in tumours were 4 mm. long; the
smallest male, found in intestine, being 7 mm. long. The smallest embryos were without
digestive apparatus ?? The largest possessed an intestine, unicellular glands (lemniscus ?