EFFECTS OF THE PRESENCE OF THE TAPE- WORM. 477 



unhealthy, arid that they would suffer especially from constipation 

 and its consequences. When the tape-worm is present, the stools are 

 somewhat fluid and uniform, thus imparting a greater power of resis- 

 tance against the rapid changes of temperature which prevail in a 

 mountainous country, and also decreasing the tendency to disease, 

 especially of an inflammatory nature. For this reason the Abyssinians 

 use cousso, not to expel the worm, which, in fact, it rarely does, but 

 only to shorten its length. As a rule they take, as Schimper re- 

 marks, a dose every two months, which at these intervals, has only 

 the effect of not allowing the worm to become so long as to be 

 troublesome to its host. The time at which it reaches this stage 

 varies, however, according to the diet of the individual. Those 

 who take little but good food are not troubled by the size of the 

 worm for a long time ; while others, and especially those who eat raw 

 flesh in excess, are afflicted by a remarkably rapid growth of the 

 parasite. When the worm is from 12 to 24 feet long, the expulsion 

 of the proglottides begins (Schimper), and from eight to twelve of 

 them come away daily. Now and then a pause occurs for some days, 

 although it may be assumed that the chain lengthens at the rate of 

 8 to 12 inches * in twenty-four hours. If the growth and expulsion 

 be proportionate, the worm excites no uneasiness ; but, as a rule, the 

 former preponderates, and thus it happens that the worm becomes 

 longer with age. It must not, however, be immediately concluded 

 that there is an insufficient expulsion merely because only a small 

 number of joints, or none at all, are separated ; for the separated joints 

 often remain in the intestine in larger or smaller numbers, until they 

 perish and disappear, and are ultimately voided in an unrecognisable 

 condition along with the excreta. 



Abyssinia is, moreover, not the only country in Africa in which 

 Tcenia saginata occurs. We know that it is also found in Nubia, 

 Ethiopia, the Cape, Senegambia, Algiers, and Egypt. Thus it seems 

 to be pretty well distributed over the whole of Africa, and in many of 

 these countries is extremely frequent, though not so common, as in 

 Abyssinia. According to Primer, one can hardly open the body of a 

 negro without finding Tcenia lata (according to Bilharz, our T. 

 saginata). 



In Asia we find a similar distribution and frequency. From the 

 above-mentioned reports of the English army surgeons, there can be 

 no doubt as to its occurrence in India, although no express mention 

 is made of it. It is particularly the Mussulman population of the 

 Punjaub that suffers from it, and especially in the lower classes, who 



1 In the above-mentioned case of Perroncito, the average daily growth of the worm 

 amounted to 77 mm., that is to say, only about three inches. 



