Miscellaneous. 71 



ratio equivoca, attributed by old writers to these creatures; but 

 which is so directly contradicted by their enormous reproductive 

 powers and the curious metamorphoses which some of them are 

 known to undergo. He also well maintains their use in nature, as 

 physicians, rough it may be, but necessary to apply sharp remedies 

 to unnatural modes of life. The cestoid entozoaor tape- worms are 

 these of which the history is best known ; and they are ascertained 

 to be in their young state the little cystic entozoa that take up 

 their abode in the fl sh and other tissues of animals. What 

 can be more strange than the transformation of the little micros- 

 copic entozoon of the liver of a mouse into the tape-worm of the 

 cat, and the eggs of the tape-worm again finding their way into 

 the food of the mouse, and thence into its flesh or liver; or what 

 more curious than that the Cysticercus celluloses, which causes 

 "measles" in hogs, rabbits, and sheep, is only the young state of 

 the Tcenia solium which infests the intestines of man, and that 

 man and these domestic animals reciprocally supply each other 

 with these pests. 



"The scolex of the taenia solium and the cysticercus cellulosse are 

 identical. This is apparent from the similarity in anatomical struc- 

 ture and from experiment It has now been determined beyond 

 controversy that by feeding the hog, rabbit and sheep with the 

 eggs of the taenia solium those animals became infested with the 

 cysticercus cellulosse, and by feeding the dog and man with those 

 cystic worms, tape-worms were produced in their intestines. The 

 abundance of evsticerei in the hoo- is well known. Statistics 

 abundantly prove the frequent occurrence of tape-worm in butchers 

 who are accustomed to handle raw meat and are not over careful 

 or cleanly, but often by their hands or knives rubbed in their 

 mouths introduce the cystic worms into their system. It is also 

 common among those who eat in any manner raw or imperfectly 

 cooked meat contaminated with the cysticerci. The Hottentots 

 in the Caffir wars demonstrated the mode of translation of the 

 cystic worms into the suitable nidus for the final stage of develop- 

 ment, namely, the intestine. Those people in the invasion of the 

 enemy's territory feasted according to their barbarous fashion upon 

 tiie cattle and sheep that were captured, and became greatly 

 infested with tape-worm, whilst previously they were mostly 

 exempt." 



The history of these creatures may be shortly stated as follows : — 

 1. The Proglottis or full-grown joint loaded with ova, passes 



