336 THE ANIMAL PARASITES OF MAN 



in public localities and many private houses affording striking testi- 

 mony of this. The minute oncospheres can thus easily reach the 

 fingers and thence the mouth (as in twirling the moustache, biting the 

 nail). More rarely a third manner of transmission or internal auto- 

 infection may possibly take place, as when, in the act of vomiting, 

 mature proglottids near the stomach are drawn into it ; the onco- 

 spheres or segments there retained are then in the same position as 

 if they had been introduced through the mouth. 



On account of these dangers of internal or external auto-infection, it is therefore 

 the duty of the medical attendant, after recognizing the presence of tapeworms, to 

 expel them, 1 and in doing so to employ every possible means to prevent vomiting 

 setting in ; it is, however, equally important to take the necessary steps to destroy 

 the parasites evacuated. It may be incidentally mentioned that in using certain 

 remedies the scolex not rarely remains in the intestine ; the cure in such cases has 

 not been accomplished, as the scolex again produces new proglottids, and after 

 about eleven weeks the first formed ones are again mature and appear in the fasces. 



Amongst the cysticerci also many malformations appear ; thus absence of the 

 rostellum and the hooks, or double formation with six suckers, or abnormalities of 

 growth on account of the surroundings, which have had a special name given to 

 them, viz., Cysticercus racemosus, Zenk. (== C. botryoides, Hell. ; C. multilocularis, 

 Kchnmstr.) ; these forms are more especially found at the base of the brain, are 

 irregularly ramified and often without the head. 



A certain interest is attached to those forms that have led to the 

 establishment of a distinct species : 



Cysticercus acanthotrias, Weinld., 1858. 



In making the autopsy of a white Virginian woman who had died of phthisis, a 

 Cysticercus was found in the dura mater, and eleven or twelve specimens in the 

 muscles and subcutaneous tissue. Weinland and Leuckart, who examined the 

 specimens, found that they resembled Cysticercus celluloses in form and size, but that 

 they carried on the rostellum a triple crown, each consisting of fourteen to sixteen 

 hooks, which differed from the hooks of C. celluloses or of Tcenia solium by the 

 greater length of the posterior root process and the more slender form of the 

 hooks; the large hooks measured 0*153 to 0-196 mm., the medium-sized hooks, 

 OT 14 to 0-14 mm., and the small ones 0*063 to '7 mm. 



On account of these differences a distinct species of Cysticercus 

 was established, and this naturally presupposed a corresponding 

 species of Taenia (T. acanthotrias, Lkt.) ; this could be done with 



1 The diagnoiss as a rule is not difficult ; the patients themselves frequently observe the 

 pumpkin seed-like segments in the faeces. But in such cases the diagnosis must still be 

 confirmed. In other cases the discovery of the oncospheres in their embryonal shells 

 (embryophores), which cannot be confounded with the other constituents of the feces, gives 

 complete certainty, although the differential diagnosis between T. solium and T. faginata 

 is hardly possible from the embryophores ; but, if evacuated segments are placed between 

 two slides and lightly pressed, the species is easily recognizable by the shape of the uterus 

 (cf. figs. 239 and 241). 



