Abstract
The Asiatic hedgehog, Erinaceus dealbatus, in the Peiping area is frequently infected with the third stage larvae of Spirocerca sanguinolenta encysted in omentum and mesentery as pointed out by Faust, 1 who infected experimentally dogs and cats by feeding them with these larvae and described the order of their migration in the animals as follows: Excystment in stomach cavity; penetrating stomach wall; passing into gastro-epiploic and portal veins; passing through hepatic capillaries, right heart, pulmonary capillaries and left heart; arriving in, and attaching themselves to the intima of, lower thoracic and upper abdominal aorta; migrating upward and finally settling in the wall of upper thoracic aorta. The part of the migration route within the aortic wall was described by Hiyeda and Faust. 2
Being not completely convinced that the larvae can pass through 2 sets of capillaries whose calibers are much too small to provide an easy passage for them, and that they can penetrate the aortic wall in spite of the rapid blood flow in the aorta, we repeated Faust's feeding experiment and obtained the following results:
Twelve young dogs were each fed with 270 to 400 living encysted larvae. The dogs were killed by ether from 2 hours to 6 weeks after the feeding, and the organs, including the vessels of the stomach and the aorta are examined macro- and microscopically.
Our study shows that the larvae quickly excyst themselves in the stomach cavity and penetrate the stomach wall. After reaching the serosa they invade the arterial wall and migrate along the gastric and coeliac arteries, then the upper abdominal and the lower thoracic aorta and, finally, they reach the upper thoracic aorta which is their final habitat. The presence of larvae in the gastric and the arterial walls results in marked necrosis, acute inflammation, hemorrhage and formation of linear abscesses, all of which heal rapidly after the parasites have wandered on.
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