224 TREATMENT OF 



METHOD OF MEIER. 

 {^Carbonic acid gas. J 



§ CXLIII. A young girl, seized first with 

 epileptic attacks, and by fits of violent colic, ex- 

 hibited unequivocal signs of the existence of a tae- 

 nia in the intestinal tube. 



Some slight remedies were prescribed, without 

 effect; but after eating freely of strawberries just 

 gathered, and drinking a cup of warm milk, she 

 bad four copious alvine evacuation^ accompanied 

 with pain, and in the last of which she passed a 

 fragment of tape worm three metres eighteen cen- 

 timetres in length. (14'7) 



Dr Meier of Erfurt, after being informed of the 

 treatment, attributed this effect to the considerable 

 quantity of carbonic acid gas, which is disengaged 

 from fresh strawberries so soon as they are taken 

 into the stomach, since this fruit contains no oth- 

 er material capable of expelling a taenia. To ver- 

 ify his hypothesis, he ordered a patient, having 

 taenia, to take every hour a teaspoonful of carbon- 

 ate of magnesia, and immediately after, audtlier 

 spoonful of the acidulous tartrite of potass. Tha 

 patient having continued this treatment two days, 

 evacuated the third day several pieces of taenia. 

 It was observed on this occasion, that by abandon- 

 ing the remedies mentioned, he voided no more of 

 the taenia, and that so soon as he took them anew 



