ON EMPYEMA IN CHILDHOOD
F BATTEN
1894
The Lancet
dishes in a room, the temperature of which during June and July varied from 21° C. to 24° C. In fresh fuæces the ova are usually two-to four-segmented, but may contain eight segments, and on the second day I found several already con. taining living embryos. On the third day several embryos had escaped from their eggs. In the young stage they resemble in structure and habits the free-living rhabdites and, like them, go on feeding and growing for a, considerable time. They then change their skin
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... either once or several times and enter upon a stage when they cease to take in nourishment and to increase in size, and then they need to become parasitic ; but so long as nourishment in the way of fasces is supplied to them and they are protected from drought or too great heat they will continue to live for months, in the hope of being swallowed by a man, in whose duodenum they can alone develope into adult worms. On the fourth day the embryo is almost, and on the fifth day quite, free in its sheath. On the sixth day and later I found empty eggs from which the embryo had just escaped, but it was not until the tenth day that I caught one in the very act of emerging. On the sixth and following days the embryos were of very varying sizes, all very active, and wriggling towards the edges of the cover glass to escape. On the seventh day I could first distinguish that some of the embryos were females. On the eighth day there were on one slide 30 embryos, all alive and of different sizes, the largesized being now obviously male and female. On the tenth day the eggs were suddenly increased in number, from 1 or 2 to 17 upon one slide, apparently rhabditic, but having the same appearance as the original ova. Upon the same slide were 27 embryos of various sizes and one ruptured empty sheath. On the eleventh day one slide showed 15 eggs and 25 embryos, all alive but moving very slowly. On the twelfth day there were on one slide 27 eggs, 14 dead embryos, and only 2 alive, and those moving very feebly. I then divided the cultivation into two halves-one half to be moistened with filtered water daily, and a new half to be mixed with the fasces of a healthy man, after negativing anchylostoma by the microscope. On the fifteenth day a slide from the old half showed 5 eggs and 3 dying embryos, while a slide from the new half showed 30 eggs, 6 embryos dead, and none alive On the sixteenth day the old half showed 6 eggs and 4 dead embryos, while the new half bad 14 eggs and 7 very lively but very young embryos. This new brood had thus been produced by healthy fssces in four days. It is not necessary to give all the daily examinations. On the thirtyfirst day the slide from the old half still showed 12 eggs, one of which was empty, 5 dead embryos, and 2 living ones. The new half had 34 eggs and 18 embryos, all very lively but not growing. On the fortieth day there were no eggs and only one embryo, dead, in the old half, while in the new half there were also no eggs, but 21 very lively embryos and 3 dead ones, as also one complete sheath. On the fortyfourth day, when I had to leave Cairo, the old half still contained two embryos faintly moving, and one dead embryo, but no eggs. The new half showed four eggs and two very lively embryos on one slide. The addition of fresh fssces would a,gain revive the embryos. The experiment is enough to show that embryos on damp earth in Cairo will live for more than six weeks. !
doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(01)69535-7
fatcat:grkq56sgk5favhl6w2xqiroi4q