Description of a microscopic entozoon infesting the muscles of the human body.

While a first-year student at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, James Paget discovered trichina in muscle during dissection. Richard Owen, his teacher, named it Trichina spiralis and published an account, barely mentioning Paget. It was renamed Trichinella spiralis in 1896.

Paget communicated his discovery to the Abernethian Society at St. Bartholomew’s on 6 Feb, 1835; an abstract of his paper was published in the Transactions of the society, vol. 2. Paget later recorded the chronology of the discovery in a letter to the Lancet, 1866, 1, 269. This and his unpublished article intended for Lond. med. Gaz., 1835, was reproduced by Kean (No. 2268.1), p. 458-62. The letter was also published in Bull. Hist. Med., 1979, 53, 547.