CESTODES 139 



found toxic, and it is probable that this is a general rule with the 

 cestodes,^^ but human forms other than the echinoeoccus seem not to 

 have been investigated ; ^^ according to Jammes and Mandoul, extracts 

 of taniia are bactericidal.^" 



Dibothriocephalus latus frequently causes anemia, which has been 

 attributed to a poison liberated by the parasite when it undergoes 

 disintegration, and possibly as a secretion of the living worm.*^ All 

 the intestinal cestodes are equipped with a well-developed excretoiy 

 apparatus, and it is easy to imagine that their excretory products 

 may be toxic to the animal into whose intestine they are excreted. 

 Tallqvist ^- has made extensive studies of bothriocephalus, which show 

 that the active hemolytic agent is contained in the lipoids of the 

 parasites, presumably as a cholesterol ester of oleic acid.^^ The 

 proglottides contain a proteolytic enzyme, which apparently digests 

 the substance of dead segments, liberating the hemolytic lipoid, which 

 constitutes about ten per cent, of the solids of the parasite. There 

 is also a hemagglutinin, which, unlike the hemolytic substance, is 

 thermolabile, and causes the appearance of an antibody in immunized 

 animals. In common with other parasites, antitrj^jtic and antipeptic 

 effects are exhibited by extracts. 



Rosenqvist ** has studied the metabolism of twenty-one cases of 

 bothriocephalus anemia, and found evidence in nearly all of a toxo- 

 genic destruction of protein, which ceases promptly when the worms 

 are removed. He has found that these worms produce a poison 

 which is globulicidal, and probably also generally cytotoxic, since in 

 the anemias that they produce, the elimination of purine bodies of 

 tissue origin (endogenous purine) is increased. The nitrogenous 

 metabolism is quite the same in pernicious anemia and in bothrio- 

 cephalus anemia. Isaac and v. d. Velden ^^ state that the blood of 

 patients infected with this parasite gives a precipitin reaction with 

 autolytic fluid obtained from bothriocephalus, and that rabbits im- 

 munized with such autolytic fluids developed a precipitin. 



Other Taenia. — There is much less evidence that other forms of 

 taenia produce toxic substances which injure their host, although the 

 clinical manifestations observed in persons harboring ta?nia are often 

 of such a nature as to indicate strongly an intoxication. Jammes 

 and IMandoul *® found no toxic manifestations produced by extracts of 

 Taenia saginata, which negative finding is supported by Cao,"*" Tall- 



38 Blanchard., loc cit. 



•^n vSemaine med., 190.5 (25), 55. 



•10 See also Joyeux, Arch. d. Parasitol., 1007 (11), 400. 



41 Literature by Blanchard, Joe rif. 



42Zeit. klin. iVied., 1007 (61), 427. 



43 Faust and Tallqvist, Arch. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1007 (57), .307 



44Zeit. klin. Med., 100,3 (40), 103. 



■*-> Dout. med. Woeh., 1904 (30), 082. 



4fi Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci., 1904 (138), 1734. 



47Riforma med., 1901 (3), 795. 



