Ten years ago I made an attempt to summarize briefly the advances which had been made in our knowledge of parasitic worms during the preceding few years. The interval has witnessed much upheaval and interruption of scientific labour, but nevertheless a very considerable amount of work on the subject has been accomplished. The nature of this does not appear to have been influenced to any exceptional extent by the war.

Pierre Joseph Van Beneden was born 19 December, 1809, at Malines, Belgium, and died 8 January, 1894, at Louvain. He graduated in medicine (1831) and became Curator of the Natural History Museum, Louvain, where he became Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in 1836. Besides doing zoological work of high value which he pursued actively to the end of his life, he established at his own expense in 1843, a marine aquarium, one of the first of its kind. In parasitology he attained great distinction through his investigations upon the biology of parasitic worms and their relation to their hosts, his work Mémoire sur les vers intestinaux (viii + 376 pp. 28 pis. 4°), published in 1858, bringing him the “grand prix des Sciences physiques” of the Institut de France. In 1875 he published his results in popular form under the title Les commensaux et les parasites dans le régne animal, as one of the International Science Series, this appearing both in English and German translations. His publications number over 200 and he was joint author with Paul Gervais of a general work on medical zoology in two volumes (1859).

At the request of Prof. G. H. F. Nuttall, F.R.S., the writer has attempted to put together a few notes on methods found useful in obtaining well-preserved specimens for helminthological purposes. Of the large number of methods that have been recommended for the various groups by different authorities, only a limited selection can be given, and preference is given, where possible, to those which are comparatively simple and can be employed in the field or under the limited conditions of a field laboratory, while at the same time experience has shown them to give sufficiently good results for ordinary purposes.

Lazzaro Spallanzani, one of the great natural philosophers of the eighteenth century, was born in 1729 at Scandiano, and was educated in Reggio and in Bologna where he came under the influence of his cousin Laura Bassi who was professor of mathematics and physics there. He was intended for the law but at the age of 28, having taken holy orders, he became professor of Greek, logic and mathematics in the College of Reggio. It was here that he began to interest himself in biological questions and by correspondence he became associated with Charles Bonnet and Haller in Switzerland. In 1760 he accepted a chair in the University of Modena where he remained eight years. This was one of the most fertile periods of his life for in addition to dissertations on Greek inscriptions, on problems in mathematics and physics he produced his epoch-making works on spontaneous generation, on the regeneration of lost parts and on the circulation of the blood. By the end of the Modena period he was elected F.R.S. and was known as one of the foremost scientists of his time. In 1768 he was appointed by the Empress Maria Teresa to be the Conservator of the Museum of natural history in Pavia and he held this post till his death in 1799. In 1776 he published his great Opuscoli di fisica animale e vegetabile and in 1780 Dissertazioni di fisica animale e vegetabile, works which must compel the most captious critic to range the Italian abbate among the greatest experimental philosophers of all time. In these works he dealt exhaustively with the problems of spontaneous generation, and the origin of the animalcules of infusions, the nature and origin of spermatozoa, the effect of stagnant air on animals and vegetables, the death and resurrection of animals, the nature of moulds, digestion and generation.