HYDATID DISEASE OF ICELAND. 235 



such cases are certainly not wanting in which the Echinococcus- 

 colonies open towards the intestine. The process might also 

 take place by the eggs of those Ttenia which have become 

 mature in the human intestine, escaping externally, and being 

 swallowed by other men, after the eggs had been driven 

 about. 



It is now a problem for the surgeons of Iceland, in the dissec- 

 tion of those individuals who had suffered from Echinococcus, 

 and especially those from whom Echinococcus-vesicles had passed 

 off externally, to see whether a Tcenia occurs in the intestinal 

 canal of the Icelanders, agreeing in the form of its head 

 and in its sucking discs with the second species of Echinococcus. 

 Moreover, it is desirable that the surgeon who is treating a 

 patient from whom Echinococcus-vesicles pass off, either per 

 anum or by vomiting, should submit him to treatment with 

 the remedies for tape- worms, so as to destroy the young 

 embryos before they attain maturity. 



But this cannot be the only source of infection of the 

 Icelanders with Echinococci, there must still be a further mi- 

 gration of the embryos externally as well as another place 

 in which the scolices of the Echinococcus-colony may become 

 mature Tceniae. It is at present unknown to us whether the 

 sheep, cattle, and larger graminivorous domestic animals in 

 general, in Iceland, suffer generally from Echinococci, arid then 

 from what species ; and it would be worth while for Icelandic sur- 

 geons to tell us what species of Echinococcus occur in the last- 

 mentioned domestic animals, or to send the vesicles which occur 

 in the liver, the peritoneum or other abdominal viscera, the 

 lungs, the kidneys, &c., of different sheep, cattle, and horses, to 

 the continent of Europe, for examination with good microscopes. 

 Many cases of dropsy in sheep may belong here. If it were 

 possible for a sheep-dog here and there to infect himself in 

 this way with one or other of the two species of Tania Echino- 

 coccus, this would still only be a rare case, at least as regards 

 the second species. 



There still, however, remains another way in which the dogs 

 may obtain the scolices of Echinoc. altricipariens directly from 

 man, without any occasion (to remove Von Siebold's fears) for 

 giving so much offence to the dignity of man as to suppose that 

 in order to obtain this worm the dogs in Iceland are compelled 



