BioConcepts

infusoriainfusoirs (fr.); Infusoria (ger.)

• A class of Protozoa, comprising ciliated, tentaculate, and flagellate animalcula, essentially unicellular, free-swimming, or sedentary; so called because found in infusions of decaying animal or vegetable matter.Originally, as constituted by O.F. Müller, the Infusoria comprehended an assemblage of minute, usually microscopic, organisms, of many diverse kinds, including some now classed as vegetables, as the Diatomaceæ and the Desmidiaceæ. As now limited, the Infusoria are Protozoa characterized by a half-liquid endosarc, a firm cortical ectosarc, an outer membraneous cuticle, a mouth and anus, and a contractile vesicle which injects fluid. They were regarded by Huxley as a primary group in the animal kingdom. (OED)
  category protist

  1765

  animalculis infusoriis

  Wrisberg, H.A. (1765). Observationes de animalculis infusoriis

  1786

  Animalcula Infusoria

  Müller (1786). Animalcula Infusoria fluviatilia et marina.

  1798

  The animalcula infusoria take their name from their being found in all kinds either of vegetable or animal infusions.

  Kanmacher, F. (1798). Adams’s Essays on the Microscope, 2nd ed.: 416.

  1809

  Les Infusoirs et les Polypes

  Lamarck, J.B. de (1809). Philosophie zoologique, 2 vols.: I, 283.

  1818

  Die Thiere der ersten Ordnung [of protozoa] sind die durchaus einfachen und gallertartigen Infusorien

  Goldfuß, G.A. (1818). Probe aus Goldfuß Handbuch der Zoologie. Isis 1818, 1670-1676: 1671.