INTESTINAL WORMS. 359 



being immediately recognised. It is white, flat, thin and broad, 

 and tape-like in its shape, and of extreme length, divided at 

 regular intervals by articulations or short joints. It is said 

 to have measured twenty feet and upwards in length. It 

 inhabits the small intestines, occupying from its great length 

 a very considerable extent of their canal. Tlie head, which 

 is tuberculous and placed at the slenderest end of the body, 

 is said to be always directed towards — now and then indeed 

 to be actually within — the stomach. Tape-worms are fre- 

 quently found in, occasionally are vomited up by, dogs : but 

 in horses their presence is extremely rare : only one instance 

 is recorded in the Sick Journals of the Royal Horse In- 

 firmary. I never met with the worm in my own practice. 



Remedies for Worms are numerous enough, and so 

 various that we shall find a difficulty in choosing; and a 

 still greater difficulty in selecting one of any real service. In 

 England we have for a long while been in the habit of 

 pursuing the plan of treatment laid down by Gibson — 

 indeed, many still continue the practice — of giving what are 

 called mercurial purges ; i. e., of exhibiting one or two 

 drachms of calomel one morning, and the next, administering 

 a strong purging ball, with a view of bringing away in its 

 operation the worms which the mercury is supposed either 

 to have destroyed or else detached from their holding 

 places : or, the calomel and the aloes are sometimes mixed 

 together in the same ball, in the proportion of one drachm 

 to six or seven of purging mass. Gibson recommends " a 

 course of these mercurial purges /^ and directs us to follow 

 them up with the administration twice or thrice a week of a 

 drink composed of rue and chamomile and horehound, &c. 



Antimony. — The same author informs us that "most of 

 the preparations of antimony are efficacious for destroying 

 worms.^^ And this is a hint upon which we of more modern 

 times have also acted. Many practitioners — myself for one 

 — often prescribe tartar emetic with the intention of 

 destroying worms. 1 will not aver that it has such an 

 effect ; but will honestly confess I, for my own part, have 

 used the remedy rather from repute than any conviction of 



