60 FEEDING WITH CYSTICERCUS PISIFORMIS. 



is the scolex. Even before the caudal vesicle is digested, it fre- 

 quently shrinks and collapses, its thin contents being discharged, 

 probably by exosmosis, into the thicker fluid of the stomach. 

 Accompanying the latter, the remaining portions of the Cysticerci, 

 viz., the tailless bodies with their involuted neck and head, pass 

 into the duodenum through the pylorus. Having reached the 

 duodenum, the heads and necks of the Cysticerci are extruded, 

 in order that they may find places of attachment by means of 

 their suckers and hooks, between the villi of the intestine, where 

 they may await the growth and further development of the 

 other parts of their body. 



During the first hours of their sojourn in the small intestine, 

 these outstretched tailless Cysticerci (scolices) often present a 

 bloated oedematous appearance ; but by degrees the body becomes 

 thinner, probably parting by exosmosis with its superabundance 

 of fluid, and in this manner establishing an equilibrium with 

 the more or less viscous chyle. In all these Cysticerci the 

 posterior end is clearly the place where, at an earlier period, 

 the caudal vesicle was attached, as is evinced by a sort of scar, 

 like a notch or incision, from which at first very delicate 

 flakes of membrane depend, the remains of the digested caudal 

 vesicle. Already, after a day or two, the worms begin to exhibit 

 a growth, in which only the body takes part, the neck and head 

 being already fully developed, whilst the worms were still within the 

 peritoneum of the rabbits. Whilst the bodies of the worms, as yet 

 unjointed, and only provided with very close transverse wrinkles, 

 increase in length, the transverse wrinkles also multiply ; and if 

 the growth of the body goes on uninterruptedly, the transverse 

 wrinkles, after a day or two, change by degrees into distinctly 

 marked articulations ; the joints, which are at first very short, 

 lengthen, and there appears either on the one lateral border or on 

 the other a kind of papillose elevation, which afterwards becomes the 

 aperture of the sexual organs. In this condition the ingested 

 worms have exactly the appearance of a Taenia, and only betray 

 their origin by that scar on the terminal joint of their body, of 

 which I have already spoken. After remaining twenty-five days 

 in the dog's intestine they have become Tcenia, of from ten to 

 twelve inches long. The growth of these Taenice goes on without 

 intermission, the posterior joints increasing in size, and the re- 

 productive organs in the interior developing more and more, 

 whilst at the hinder limit of the neck fresh joints are continually 



