Steenstrup’s work on the cestodes did not attract the same attention as his work on trematodes. Steenstrup always insisted on the “nurse” nature of the cysticerci and other bladder-worms. Abildgaard (1790), as well as Creplin (1829 and 1839), had already furnished the information that certain sexless cestodes (Schistocephalus and Ligula) from the abdomen of fishes only become mature after their transference to the intestine of aquatic birds. These passive migrations were confirmed in an entire series of other cestodes, particularly by v. Siebold (1844, 1848, 1850) and E. J. van Beneden (1849), not by actual experiment, but by undoubted observation.
It was correctly believed that the ova or oncospheres penetrate into certain intermediate hosts, in which they develop into unsegmented larvæ. Here they remain until, with their host, they are swallowed by some predacious animal. They then reach the intestine, being freed from the surrounding membranes through the process of digestion, and settle themselves there to form the adult chain of proglottides. Though some few scientists, such as P. J. van Beneden and Em. Blanchard, deduced from these observations that the bladder-worms (Cysticerci), which had hitherto been regarded as a separate class of helminthes, were only larval Tæniæ, this correct view was not at first universally accepted. The foundation was too slight, and van Beneden was of opinion that the Cysticerci were not necessary, but only appeared incidentally.
v. Siebold was a strenuous opponent to this theory, notwithstanding his experiences on the change of hosts of the Tetrarhynchus. Together with Dujardin (1850) he conjectured that the Tæniæ underwent a deviating cycle of development. He was of opinion that the six-hooked oncospheres left the intestine, in which the older generation lived, and were scattered about with the fæces, and finally re-entered per os (i.e., with water and food) a host similar to the one they had left, in the intestine of which they were directly transformed into tapeworms. A change of host such as occurred in other cestodes was not supposed to take place (the history of the cestodes was at this time not entirely established). As the oncospheres of the Tænia are enveloped in one calcareous or several softer coverings which they cannot leave actively, and as, in consequence of this condition, innumerable oncospheres cannot penetrate into an animal, and others cannot reach the proper animal, v. Siebold conceded, at least for the latter, the possibility of a further development. But this was only supposed to occur because they had either invaded wrong hosts, or, having reached the right hosts, had penetrated organs unsuitable to their development, and had thus gone astray in their travels, and had become hydropically degenerated tæniæ. This was v. Siebold’s explanation of bladder-worms. Naturally, v. Siebold himself conjectured that a recovery of the diseased tapeworm might occur, in a few exceptional cases, after transmission into the correct host, as, for instance, in the Cysticercus fasciolaris of mice, the host of which is the domestic cat, and in which there is a seemingly normally developed piece of tapeworm situated between the caudal vesicle and the cysticercus head.
Guided by correct views, F. Küchenmeister undertook in Zittau the task of confirming the metamorphosis of Cysticercus pisiformis of hares and rabbits, into tapeworms in the intestine of the dog by means of feeding experiments. The first reports on the subject, published in 1851, were not likely to meet with universal approval, because Küchenmeister first diagnosed the actual tapeworm he had been rearing as Tænia crassiceps, afterwards as Tænia serrata, and finally as Tænia pisiformis n. sp. However, in any case, Küchenmeister, by means of the reintroduction of experimental investigation, rendered a great service to helminthology.
The publication of Küchenmeister’s works induced v. Siebold to undertake similar experiments (1852 and 1853), which were partly published by his pupil Lewald in 1852. But the positive results obtained hardly changed Siebold’s opinion, for although he no longer considered the bladder-worms as hydropically degenerated tapeworms, he still regarded them as tæniæ that had strayed. The change of opinion was partly due to an important work of the Prague zoologist, v. Stein (1853). He was able to examine the development of a small bladder-worm in the larvæ of the well-known meal-worm (Tenebrio molitor) and to demonstrate that, as Goeze had already proved in the case of Cysticercus fasciolaris of mice, first the caudal vesicle is formed and then the scolex, whereas Siebold believed that in bladder-worms the posterior end of the scolex was formed first, and that this posterior end underwent a secondary hydropic degeneration.
In opposition to v. Siebold, Küchenmeister successfully proved the necessity of the bladder-worm stage by rearing tapeworms in dogs from the Cysticercus tenuicollis of domestic mammals and from the Cœnurus cerebralis of sheep. He, and simultaneously several other investigators independently, succeeded, with material provided by Küchenmeister, in rearing the Cœnurus cerebralis in sheep from the oncospheres of the Tænia cœnurus of the dog (1854). R. Leuckart obtained similar results in mice by feeding them with the mature proglottides of the Tænia crassicollis of cats (1854).
Küchenmeister also repeatedly reared the Tænia solium of man from the Cysticercus cellulosæ of pigs (1855), and from the embryos of this parasite P. J. van Beneden succeeded in obtaining the same Cysticercus in the pig (1854). As Küchenmeister distinguished the Tænia mediocanellata, known to Goeze as Tænia saginata, amongst the large tæniæ of man (1851), so it was not long before R. Leuckart (1862) succeeded in rearing the cysticercus of the hookless tapeworm in the ox. It is particularly to this last-named investigator that helminthology is indebted more than to any other author. He followed the gradual metamorphosis from oncospheres to cystic worms in all its details.
In view of all the researches that were made, and which are too numerous to mention individually, the idea that bladder-worms are abnormal or only incidental forms had to be abandoned. Everything pointed to the fact that in all cestodes the development is divided between two kinds of animals; in one—the host, the adult tapeworm is found; while in the other, the intermediate host, we find some form or other of an intermediate stage (cysticercus in the broadest sense). The practical application of this knowledge is self-evident. If no infected pork or beef is ingested, no tapeworm can be acquired, and also the rearing of cysticerci in the human body is prevented by avoiding the introduction of the eggs of tapeworms.
Though these results were definitely proved by numerous researches, yet they have been repeatedly challenged, notably by J. Knoch (1862) in Petrograd, who, on the basis of experiments, sought to confirm a direct development without an intermediate host and ciliated stage, at all events as regards Dibothriocephalus latus. However, the repeated communications of this author met with but little favour from competent persons, partly because the experiments were conducted very carelessly, and partly because their repetition on dog and man (R. Leuckart) had no results (1863). It was only in 1883 that Braun was able to prove that the developmental cycle of Dibothriocephalus latus is similar to that of other Cestodes. The results obtained in other places by Parona, Grassi, Ijima and Zschokke render any discussion of Küchenmeister’s conclusions unnecessary.7 Long after Knoch, a French author, P. Mégnin, also pleaded for the direct development of some cestodes, and especially some tæniæ. He (1879) also sought to prove a genetic connection between the hookless and armed tapeworms of mammals, but the arguments he adduced, so far as they rest on observations, can be easily refuted or attributed to misinterpretation. Only one of these arguments is correct, namely, that the number of the species of tæniæ with which we are acquainted is far larger than that of the corresponding cystic forms; but this disparity alone cannot be taken as a proof of direct development. It can only be said that our knowledge in this respect is deficient. As a matter of fact, we have during recent years become acquainted with a large number of cystic forms, hitherto unknown, belonging to tæniæ which have long been familiar. It must also be borne in mind that no man in his lifetime can complete an examination for bladder-worms of the large number of insects, for instance, which may destroy an entire generation of an insectivorous species of bird within a small district.
Naturally it does not follow that direct development in the cestodes is altogether lacking. The researches of Grassi (1889) have furnished an example in Hymenolepis