Development of the Tapeworms

Copulation.—As each proglottis possesses its own genital apparatus, and male as well as female organs are present, the following processes may occur: (1) self- or auto-fecundation (without immissio cirri); (2) self- or auto-copulation (with immissio cirri); (3) cross-copulation between proglottids of the same or different chains (of the same species); and (4) cross-copulation in the same proglottis in species with double genital pores. These various modes have actually been observed.

In those species which lack the vagina (Acoleïnæ) it appears that the cirri, which are always furnished with hooks, are driven into the tissues and for the most part reach the receptaculum seminis.

The eggs of all Cestodes are provided with shells, but the shells, like their contents, vary. In genera that possess a uterine pore the mature eggs frequently do not differ from those of the Distomata; they have a brown or yellow shell of oval form provided with an operculum, and contain a number of yolk cells in addition to the fertilized ovarian cell (fig. ), but in other genera (with a uterine pore) the lid is absent and the egg-shell is very thin, the eggs of these genera resembling those of Cestodes in which the secretion of the vitellarium is a light albumin-like substance that contains only a few granules, and in which the egg-shell is very delicate and without operculum.

The eggs of Tæniidæ, for example, at first consist of egg-shell (oötype), ovum and yolk cells. The egg-shell is as a rule soft, colourless and frequently deciduous, and the yolk is scanty in amount and contains few granules. The eggs are, moreover, more complicated than this. They enlarge and change their shape and various envelopes are developed around the embryo. The egg-shell proper often disappears, and one or more embryonal envelopes, or protoplasmic layers, arise, so that eventually it is difficult to say whether the whole egg is present, and, if not, what the layers that remain really are.

The embryonal development in most species takes place during the stay of the eggs in the uterus; in other species it takes place after the eggs have been deposited and are in water. Separate cells or a layer of cells always separate from the segmentation cells, as well as from the cells of the developing embryo, and form one or more envelopes round the embryo; usually two such envelopes are formed, the inner one of which stands in intimate relationship with the embryo itself and is often erroneously termed the egg-shell, but more correctly the embryonal shell or embryophore. In some species it carries long cilia, as in Dibothriocephalus latus, by aid of which the young swim about when released from the egg-shell; as a general rule, however, there are no cilia and this envelope is homogeneous, or is composed of numerous rods and is calcified, as in Tænia spp. (fig. 197). The second outer envelope (“yolk envelope”) (fig. , 3) lies close within the true (oötype) egg-shell, and remains within it when the embryo hatches out, and in many species, as in Tænia spp., it perishes at the end of the embryonal development with the delicate egg-shell which was formed in the oötype, so that one observes not the entire egg with egg-shell but only the embryo in its embryonal shell, viz., the embryophore (fig. 197, a.).

The embryo (the ONCOSPHERE) enclosed within the embryonal shell (embryophore) is of spheroidal or ovoid form (fig. 197, b.), and is distinguished by the possession of three pairs of spines, a few terminal (flame) cells of the excretory system, and muscles to move the spines.

No further development of the oncosphere takes place, either in the parent organism or in the open; in fact, in all cases in which the oncospheres are already formed within the proglottids they do not become free, but remain in their shell; it is only when the oncospheres are provided with a ciliated embryophore that they leave the egg-shell, and they even cast this ciliated envelope after having swum about in water by its means for a week or so. Sooner or later, however, all the oncospheres leave the host that harbours the parental tapeworm and reach the open, either still enclosed in the uterus of the evacuated proglottids, after the disintegration of which they then become free, or after being deposited as eggs in the intestine of the host; they then leave it with the fæces. In the former case also, the slightest injury to the mature proglottids while still in the intestine suffices to allow a part of the oncospheres in their embryophores to be released and mingled with the fæces. Here they are the generally, but falsely, so-called Tæniæ “eggs.” For, as stated above, the “yolk” envelope and the true shell deposited in the oötype have before this disintegrated.

In other cases, e.g., Hymenolepis spp., the uterine (oötype) shell persists in fæces (fig. ).

In any case the oncospheres must be transmitted into suitable animals to effect their further development; in only very rare cases might an active invasion be possible, as, for instance, takes place with the miracidia of many Trematodes. The entry into an animal is, as a rule, entirely passive, that is to say, the oncospheres are swallowed with the food or water. Many animals are coprophagous and ingest the oncospheres direct with the fæces; others swallow them with water, mud, or food contaminated by such fæces. Infection is easily produced artificially by feeding suitable animals with mature proglottids of certain Cestodes or introducing the oncospheres with the food. As the mature tapeworm frequently finds the conditions suitable for its development in only one species of host, or in species nearly related, and perishes when artificially introduced into other hosts, experiment has taught us that to succeed in cultivating the oncospheres certain species of animals are necessary. Thus we are aware that the oncospheres of Tænia solium, which lives in the intestine of man, develop only in the pig, and only quite exceptionally develop into the stage characteristic of all Cestodes—the cysticercus in the wide sense of the word—in a few other mammals. The oncospheres of T. saginata develop further only in the ox; those of T. marginata (of the dog) in the pig, goat, and sheep; those of T. serrata (of the dog) in hares and rabbits; those of Dipylidium caninum (of the dog and cat) in parasitic insects of the dog and cat, etc. It is not unusual that young animals only appear to be capable of infection, while older animals of the same species are not so.

Once introduced into a suitable animal, which is only exceptionally the same individual or belongs to the same species as the one which harbours the adult tapeworm, the oncosphere passes into the larval stage common to all Cestodes, but varying in structure according to the species. In the simplest case—as, e.g., in Dibothriocephalus—such a larva resembles the scolex of the corresponding tapeworm, only that the head, provided with suckers, is retracted within the fore-part of the neck. Such a larval form is known as a plerocercoid (πλήερης, full; κέρκος, tail). They differ from the cysticercoids in being solid larval forms, elongated, tape-like or oval, with the head invaginated. The conditions appear to be similar in Ligula, Schistocephalus, Triænophorus, but here the larvæ are very large, indeed as large in the first-mentioned genera as the tapeworms originating from them, and the sexual organs are already outlined; doubtless, however, this stage is preceded by one that corresponds to the scolex of the genus in question, and which represents the actual larval stage. In such cases the development of the body of the tapeworm from the scolex has already begun within the first or intermediate host; in other cases, except in the single-jointed (monozootic) Cestodes, this only takes place in the definitive host. The direct metamorphosis of the oncosphere into the larval forms termed PLEROCERCOID has hitherto not been investigated, although Ligula, Schistocephalus and Bothriocephalus are very common parasites, but many circumstances point to the conclusions arrived at by us and by other observers. In the larval stages of other tapeworms we can always distinguish the scolex and a caudal-like appendage, vesicular in the cysticerci (fig. ), compact in the cysticercoids (fig. ). The scolex alone forms the future tapeworm, the variously formed appendage perishing.

It has now been proved that the appendage, the caudal vesicle, originates direct from the body of the oncosphere, and therefore is primary, and that the scolex only subsequently forms through proliferation on the surface of this appendage. On account of this origin the scolex is generally regarded as the daughter, and the part usually designated as the appendage as the mother, originating from the oncosphere.

Accordingly, two modes of development of the larval stage may be distinguished; in the one case, plerocerci and plerocercoids, the oncosphere changes directly into the scolex, thus forming the body of the tapeworm within the primary host; in the other case, cysticerci and cysticercoids, the scolex only forms secondarily in the transformed body of the oncosphere, which later on perishes, the scolex alone remaining as the originator of the tapeworm colony.

We may summarize briefly what has been said regarding these larval forms. We have, firstly, solid larval forms without any bladder. These arise directly from the oncosphere and are of two kinds, plerocercus and plerocercoid. Plerocercus is a solid globular larva with the head invaginated into the posterior portion. Plerocercoid (fig. ) is a solid elongated larva also with the head invaginated into the posterior portion, which is sometimes very long. Secondly, we have larval forms with bladders from which the scolices arise thus indirectly from the oncosphere. They are of two kinds, cysticercoid and cysticercus.

Cysticercoid.—The bladder is but slightly developed and is usually absorbed again. The anterior portion is, moreover, retracted into the posterior, and in some cases there is a long or a stumpy tail (figs. , ).

Cysticercus, or true bladder worms. (These may be divided into (1) cysticercus proper, consisting of a bladder and one scolex; (2) cœnurus, a bladder and many scolices; (3) echinococcus, a bladder in which daughter bladders or cysts are developed, and then in these multiple scolices.)

In the case of cysticerci a papilliform invagination forms, projecting into the interior of the bladder (fig. ). The layer of cells forming the papilla becomes divided into two laminæ, the outer of which forms a kind of investing membrane (receptaculum capitis) for the papilla. The head and suckers are now developed on the walls bounding the axial lumen of the papilla. The papilla eventually evaginates, so that the receptaculum capitis now forms the inner surface of the hollow head, which eventually becomes solid.

Our knowledge of the development of cysticerci in the wide sense of the word is limited almost exclusively to that of a few true “bladder worms” (cysticerci); in other cases we know either only the terminal stage, i.e., the complete larva, or, exceptionally, one of the intermediate stages, but we are not acquainted with a complete series; the description must therefore be incomplete.

We know from feeding experiments that, after the introduction of mature proglottids or of the fully developed ova of Tænia crassicollis (of the cat) into the stomach of mice, the oncospheres escape from the shell in the middle portion of the small intestine, and a few hours later penetrate into the intestinal wall by means of a boring movement; they have been found in this position twenty-seven to thirty hours after the infection. By means of this migration, for which purpose they employ their spines, they attain the blood-vessels of the intestine; indeed, already nine hours after the infection and later they are found in the blood of the portal vein, and in the course of the second day after infection they are found in the capillaries of the liver, which these larvæ do not leave.

Leuckart, in experimental feeding of rabbits with oncospheres of Tænia serrata (of the dog), found free oncospheres in the stomach of the experimental animal, but not in the intestine: however, he came across them again in the blood of the portal vein. The passage through the blood-vessels to the liver is the normal one for those species of Tænia the eggs of which become larvae in mammals; even in those cases in which the oncospheres develop further in the omentum or in the abdominal cavity (Cysticercus tenuicollis, C. pisiformis), there are distinct changes observable in the liver that lead one to the conclusion that there has been a secondary migration out of the liver into the abdominal cavity. Indeed, one must not imagine that the young stages of the Cestodes are absolutely passive; once they have invaded an organ they travel actively, and leave distinct traces of their passage.

In other cases the oncospheres leave the liver with the circulation, and are thus distributed further in the body; they may settle and develop in one or more organs or tissues. Many oncospheres may, by travelling through the intestinal wall, penetrate through it and attain the abdominal cavity direct; some, perhaps, pass also into the lymph stream. Where there are no blood and lymphatic vessels in the intestinal wall, as in insects, the oncospheres attain the body cavity or its organs direct; in short, they never remain in the intestinal lumen itself, and only rarely—as in Hymenolepis murina of the rat—do they remain in the intestinal wall.

When the infection has been intense, and the body is crowded with numerous oncospheres, acute feverish symptoms, are induced, to which the infected animals usually succumb (“acute cestode tuberculosis”); while in other cases the alterations in the organs attacked—as the liver in mice and the brain in sheep—may cause death.

Sooner or later the oncospheres of tapeworms come to rest, and are first transformed into a bladder, which may be round or oval according to the species. The embryonal spines disappear sooner or later, or remain close together or spread over some part of the bladder wall (fig. 200). Their discovery by V. Stein in the bladder worm of the “meal worm” (the larva of a beetle, Tenebrio molitor) first led to the conclusion that bladder worms (cysticerci) actually originate from the oncospheres of Tæniidæ.

The bladder may remain as a bladder, and then by proliferation the scolex forms on its wall (fig. 202), or it may divide into an anterior so-called “cystic” portion and a solid tail-like appendage of various lengths, on which the embryonal hooks are to be found, and this is particularly the case in those larval forms (cysticercoids), e.g., those of Dipylidium caninum, that develop in invertebrate animals, such as Arthropoda.

As mentioned above one may regard the scolex as an individual that originates through proliferation of the wall of the parent cyst, mostly singly, but in those cysticerci that are termed cœnurus (fig. 201) many scolices occur, whereas in those called echinococcus the parent cyst originating from the oncosphere of Tænia echinococcus (of the dog) first produces a number of daughter cysts, which in their turn form numerous scolices. Echinococcus-like conditions also occur in cysticercoids, as, for instance, in those peculiar to earthworms; and similar conditions prevail in a larval form known as Staphylocystis, found in the wood-louse (Glomeris). Thus it happens in these cases that finally one tapeworm egg produces not one, but numerous tapeworms, for, under favourable conditions, each scolex can form a tapeworm.

The rudiment of the scolex appears as a hollow bud, the cephalic invagination usually directed towards the interior of the bladder cavity; on its invaginated surface arise the four suckers, and the rostellum with the hook apparatus is formed in its blind end; we thus get a Tænia head, but with the position of the parts reversed (fig. 201). In many cysticerci the head rises up from the base of the cephalic invagination and is then surrounded by the latter. A more or less elongated piece of neck also develops, and even proglottids may appear, as in Cysticercus fasciolaris (the larva of Tænia crassicollis of the cat) of the Muridæ, a process somewhat analogous to that of Ligula, etc.

The period that elapses from the time of infection till the cysticercus is fully developed varies according to the species; the cysticercus of Tænia saginata requires twenty-eight weeks, that of T. marginata seven to eight weeks, that of T. solium three to four months, and that of T. echinococcus longer still.

With one single exception (Archigetes) the larvæ do not become sexually mature in the organ where they have developed; they must enter the terminal host, a matter that is usually purely passive, the carriers of the larvæ or infected parts of them being usually devoured by other animals. In this manner, for instance, the larvæ (Cysticercus fasciolaris) found in mice and rats reach the intestine of cats; those of the hare and rabbit (C. pisiformis) reach the intestine of dogs; those of the pig (C. cellulosæ) are introduced into man; those of insects are swallowed by insectivorous birds; those of crustaceans are ingested by ducks and other water fowl; perhaps, also, the infection of herbivorous mammals is caused by their accidentally swallowing smaller creatures infected by larvæ. Indeed, the researches of Grassi and Rovelli have taught us that such an intermediate host is not always necessary; Hymenolepis murina of rats and mice in its larval stage lives in the intestinal wall of these rodents, and as a larva it passes into the intestinal lumen and develops into a tapeworm in exactly the same way as the larvæ of other species that reach the intestine of the terminal host by means of an intermediate carrier. Probably this curtailed manner of transmission also occurs in many other species. In some cases the larvæ actively quit the body of the intermediate host, as in the case of Ligula and Schistocephalus, which travel out of the body cavity of infected fish and reach the water, where they may be observed in hundreds in summer, at all events in some localities. The larval stage of Calliobothrium—wrongly termed Scolex—has been observed swimming free in the sea, and the scolices of Rhynchobothrium, without their mother cysts, have been observed free within the tissues of several marine animals. In any case there is almost always a change of hosts, even in the single-jointed Cestodes, for the larva of Caryophyllæus, which lives in fishes of the carp family, is found in limicoline Oligochætes, that of Gyrocotyle (Chimæra) in shell-fish (Mactra), and different conditions can hardly be possible for Amphilina. Archigetes alone becomes sexually mature in the larval stage, but the life-history of this creature is not well known, so that it is not impossible that the attainment of sexual maturity as a larva in invertebrates (Oligochætes) is perhaps abnormal, and somewhat analogous to the maturity of some encysted Trematodes.

The METAMORPHOSIS OF THE LARVA into the tapeworm is rarely accomplished in a simple manner; the transformation, however, is not complex in the single-jointed Cestodes, nor in Ligula and Schistocephalus; the latter is swallowed by birds (Mergus, Anas, etc.), produces eggs after only a few days, and very soon quits the intestine of its terminal host. In all other cases it is the scolex only which, by proliferating at its posterior extremity, forms the proglottids, after having invaded as a larva the intestine of a suitable host. The mother cysts, or what corresponds to them, die, are digested, absorbed, or perhaps even eliminated; on the contrary, segments found on the scolex during the larval stage, also in the case of Cysticercus fasciolaris, are retained. It is not certain whether the larvæ of Dibothriocephalus lose any part.

The time required by the scolex to complete the entire chain of proglottids does not depend only on the number it has to produce, for Tænia echinococcus, which, as a rule, only possesses three or four segments, takes quite as long a time for their growth (eleven to twelve weeks) as T. solium with its numerous segments; T. cœnurus is fully developed in three to four weeks, and the same holds good for Dibothriocephalus latus, which possesses many more segments than the above-mentioned Tænia of the dog. In a number of species it has been possible to determine fairly accurately the average daily growth; for instance, in Dibothriocephalus latus the daily growth is 8 cm., in Tænia saginata 7 cm., etc.

The history of the development of the Cestodes demonstrates that persons and beasts harbouring larval tapeworms have become infected by having swallowed the oncospheres of the species of tapeworm to which they belong. In regard to Hymenolepis murina alone, it is known that the introduction of the oncospheres into those species of animals which harbour the adult tapeworm leads to the formation of the latter after the development of a larval stage in the intestinal wall; nevertheless, only young animals (rats) are capable of infection, for a previous infection, or the presence of mature tapeworms in the intestine, appears to produce a kind of immunity.