236 Miscellaneous. 



two observers, working with an ascaris from the horse, suffered in 

 addition from pain in the tliroat and loss of voice. These experi- 

 menters found that 2 cubic centimetres of the fluid taken from the 

 inside of these worms would kill a rabbit. 



Kolbe, of Reinez, after having read Peiper's publication above 

 referred to, reported a remarkable case of a child he had unsuccess- 

 fully treated with the regular worm-medicines. The boy had 

 suffered for over a year from severe abdominal pains, frequent 

 attacks of fainting, and convulsions. The doctor having been 

 unsuccessful, a friend of the boy's mother — a baker by trade — 

 suggested that he should rub up a dried round-worm with sugar, 

 and make the boy take it. This " homoeopathic " remedy had an 

 immediate effect, two tangled masses of worms the size of a fist 

 being given off by the patient, who made a promjit and complete 

 recovery. Cobbold and Davaine have reported cases where various 

 nervous symptoms have subsided on the removal of tapeworms. 

 Marx saw an epilepsy of three years'" standing cease on the removal 

 of a Tceniu solium. It is curious that the eyes are so frequently 

 affected in those suffering from tapeworms. It is quite possible 

 that this is due to the effects of a poison circulating in the blood, 

 the same having been absorbed from the intestine where the parasite 

 is domiciled. In five out of fourteen cases of patients harbouring 

 the tapeworm known as To'iiia nana, Grassi observed serious 

 symptoms resembling those of epilepsy. 



Another worm, the Bothrioce^Jiahis, may cause severe anaemia, 

 which has variously been explained as due to a peculiar poison, to 

 effects resulting from the death of the worm, or to the length of 

 time that the individual has harboured the parasite. A blood- 

 sucking worm, the AacJu/lostoma, which may occur in hundreds, and 

 even thousands', in the intestine, was believed by Lussana to contain 

 a poison, and not to injure its host simply through the loss of blood 

 it entailed. Looss, of Cairo, also states his belief, in a recent publi- 

 cation, that these parasites contain a poison. Working with the 

 larva3 of this worm last summer, he found that even after carefully 

 washing them they caused dogs which had swallowed them to vomit, 

 whereas the water in which the parasites had been washed had no 

 effect on the dogs. 



The Tifnia echijwcocois, a tapeworm which in one form of its 

 parasitic life gives rise to the condition called " Hydatid cyst,'' also 

 gives off a poison, for the fluid taken from the cyst has been shown 

 to be toxic by Debove and Humphrey, who experimented on men 

 and animals. This explains the severe symptoms, and even death, 

 which may follow the puncture of a cyst by tlio surgeon or its spon- 

 taneous rupture. There is also reason to believe that the Trichina 

 and other parasitic worms give off poisons. At any rate, we have a 

 fruitful field of investigation open to research along these lines, and 

 there may be a good deal in the home remedy of the baker worm- 

 specialist ! — The American Naturalist, March 1899, pp. 247-249. 



Hygienic Institute, University of Berlin. 



