CESTODA 75 



defraud the exchequer by smuggling, and greatly injure the 

 public health. 



The facts and explanations advanced by Italian writers 

 regarding the causes of the endemic prevalence of tapeworm, 

 are in perfect harmony with those previously obtained from 

 other sources. Respecting these causes there is much that is 

 both new and interesting. The eighth annual report of the 

 sanitary commissioner of the Government of India had already 

 made us acquainted with the fact that during the year 1869, out 

 of 13,818 head of cattle slaughtered in the stations of the 

 Upper Punjab, 768 beasts were found to be infected with 

 measle-cysts. This, as I have remarked (Tornmasi's edit., 

 p. 54), " affords a rate of 5*55 per cent., being a considerable 

 diminution of the proportion observed in 1868, when the per- 

 centage gave a total of 6*12. The reduction was, without 

 doubt, due to the vigilance and enlightenment of the army 

 meat inspectors. The prevalence, however, of tapeworm does 

 not bear relation to the number of animals infested with Cysti- 

 cerci so much as to the actual number of Cysticerci developed 

 in infected animals. I have frequently pointed out the inad- 

 visability of condemning and burying the carcases of measly 

 oxen, whether there be few or many Cysticerci present, and I 

 have stated, on trustworthy evidence, that even the presence of 

 a few Cysticerci is deemed by some inspectors a sufficient reason 

 for rejecting the entire animal. Such a waste should never be 

 allowed. In regard to the numbers of ox-measles present in 

 particular instances, I have elsewhere adduced some remarkable 

 facts communicated to me by Dr Joseph Fleming, of the 

 Indian Army Medical Staff. None of my experimental 

 animals, though fed with scores of ripe proglottides, yielded 

 such an abundance of Cysticerci as Dr Fleming encountered in 

 Punjab cattle. In one pound weight of the psoas muscles 

 Fleming counted no less than 300 Cysticerci." From this it 

 follows that the flesh of a largely infested animal is capable, 

 under the circumstances of ration distribution and imperfect 

 cooking, of originating numerous tapeworms. 



Not many years back the leading medical journal of this 

 country challenged me to produce evidence as to the injurious- 

 ness of beef and mutton from Cysticerci. The writer stated in 

 his article that I had " failed to produce a single specimen of 

 beef or mutton measles " which had not resulted from experi- 

 ments conducted " at the Koyal Veterinary College ; " and he 



