63 OF THE PRINCIPAL WORMS 



in breadth and thickness. The joints of the taenia 

 when united, present at first sight, remarkable pe- 

 culiarities both as to their width, bigness and tenui- 

 ty, and also in regard to the perforated papillae on the 

 lateral border of some of them, as well as the lon- 

 gitudinal lines which traverse the centre of their 

 bodi{'s.( 10) I am however confident that all these 

 pretended peculiarities do not always exist in the 

 same species, but that they are mere signs of the 

 age of the worm, and of the richness and abun- 

 dance or poorness of the nourishment which it re- 

 ceives at the expense of the animal machine. 



^ V. The length of the taenia is sometimes 

 so considerable as to appear incredible. In mam- 

 miferous animals it is ordinarily from nine to twelve 

 Paris fbet (four metres*), and in man from twenty- 

 five to thirty (from eight to ten metres.) Mosen- 

 stein{ii) once saw a taenia voided, which surpassed 

 in length one hundred and twenty eight metres. 



Vu7i-Doeveren[i2) relates the history of a 

 peasant, who, after taking an emetic, evacuated 

 sixty metres of taenia, and who probably would 

 have voided more if he had not broken the worm 

 from an apprehension that he was discharging all 

 his intestines. 



If i?aZfZi?i^ei' does not exaggerate in his work, ( IS) 

 he speaks of a taenia which was more than two 

 hundred metres long. 



* The metre of France is equal to 39,3702 inches, or threSf 

 feet and nearly athird of a foot, of American long measure. Ji.T. 



