CYSTICERCI IN SAUSAGES. 85 



in form, are commonly of a pale-red colour, and have on every 

 joint two marginal apertures opposite to each other. 



The evidence that I have given in the foregoing chapter of 

 certain cestoids becoming changed in the digestive canal of dogs 

 into sexually developed tape-worms, suggests the idea that,, most 

 probably, the greater number of the human tape-worms enter as 

 scolices into the intestine of man. That the opportunity for 

 such an immigration may readily occur is plain, if we reflect how 

 easily a Cysticercus may get upon the lips of a butcher or a cook 

 in handling pork containing these parasites. In fact, it appears 

 from the medical reports that persons engaged in slaughter-houses 

 and kitchens very commonly suffer from tape-worms, 1 which 

 indicates that, although the use of " measly" meat for the most 

 part never produces dangerous results, yet that especial care 

 should be taken regarding it. In any case, encysted pork, when 

 boiled or roasted, can afford no opportunity for the production of 

 a T&nia solium in the human digestive canal, since the Cysticcrci 

 will be completely destroyed by the degree of heat necessary 

 for the preparation of the meat; but it is quite a different 

 case with smoked sausages, in the manufacture of which 

 many butchers make use of measly meat. 3 With the present 

 clever and expeditious method of smoking them, how easily 

 may a sausage stuffed with this meat be eaten so soon and in 

 such a fresh condition, that one or another scolex may have pre- 

 served its vitality, and awakening from its trance in the human 

 digestive canal, proceed to its development as a tape-worm. 

 From what I have stated in the earlier chapters with regard to 

 the internal relation of the scolices to the tape-worms, it is now 

 explained how that in no country are men more tormented by 

 these parasites than in Abyssinia, it being well known that the 

 Abyssinians eat a great deal of raw meat. Dr. Bilharz, formerly 

 a pupil of mine, some time ago wrote to me from Cairo, that in 

 Abyssinia the tape-worm was so common that a native would 

 regard it as an abnormal condition if he were to expel no tape- 

 worm joints; and that no slave was purchased there without at the 



1 Compare "Wawntch, ' Praktische Monographic der Bandwurmkrankheit,' Vienna, 

 1844, p. 197. 



2 The shrunk Cysticerci in such sausages are very easily to be found ; they form 

 milk-white bodies of the size of a needle's head, which, when pressed between glass 

 plates and seen through the microscope, show the circlet of hooks and the four suckers 

 of the scolex very distinctly. 



