124 PARASITES OF MAN 



To employ the writer's own words, " this mortality gives only 

 a faint notion of the extreme prevalence of hydatids in Victoria, 

 since numbers of cases are cured by tapping, and otherwise by 

 medical treatment, or by spontaneous bursting of the cysts." 

 Hydatids are often found post mortem where their presence has 

 never been suspected during life. " To meet with hydatids as a 

 cause of deranged health is now a matter of daily expectation 

 with every medical practitioner." Lastly, Dr Dougan Bird, in 

 his able brochure on ' Hydatids of the Lung/ fully confirms 

 these statements, remarking that the rich and poor of the Aus- 

 tralian metropolis suffer just as much from hydatids as do either 

 the shepherds of the western plains, or the miners of Ballarat 

 and Sandhurst. 



Such are the facts from Australia. As regards home evi- 

 dence, so far as I am aware, little or nothing has been done 

 towards securing an accurate estimate of the mortality in 

 England from echinococcus disease. The reports of the Regis- 

 trar General give no sufficient sign. The explanation is not far 

 to seek, since for the most part hydatids are either classed 

 with diseases of the liver, or with those of the other organs in 

 which they happen to have been present. 



One of the most valuable contributions to our knowledge of 

 the prevalence of hydatid disease affecting animals is that 

 supplied by Dr Cleghorn, from a statistical table constructed 

 by the executive commissariat officers stationed at Mooltan. 

 The record in question shows that out of 2109 slaughtered 

 animals, no fewer than 899 were affected with hydatid 

 disease. This is equal to more than forty-two per cent. In 

 the majority of cases, both the lungs and liver were affected, 

 cysts were found 829 times in the liver and 726 times in the 

 lungs. In a few instances they were present in the kidneys, 

 and also occasionally in the spleen. The inference from all 

 this is that in India, if not elsewhere, the echinococcus disease 

 is much less common in man than it is in animals. The 

 explanation is simple enough, since cattle have more ready access 

 to, and less scruple in partaking of filthy water and food in 

 or upon which the eggs of the Tcenia echinococcus abound. 



Into purely professional questions connected with the treat- 

 ment of the echinococcus malady I do not here enter ; never- 

 theless, in connection with hygiene I may observe that the 

 prevalence of hydatids in any country is strictly dependent 

 upon the habits of the people. The close intimacy subsisting 



