GENERAL REMARKS. 57 



the ingestion into the stomach of insufficiently- 

 cooked meat. 



Age is another of the conditions which are most 

 evidently connected with the frequency or the rarity 

 of entozoa. In the human subject, the various 

 species of worms are unequally common at differeiit 

 periods of life, and are relatively rare amongst very 

 young infants, and in old people. 



Although several cases of entozoa in the foetus 

 have been recorded by the earlier writers, they are 

 of a very doubtful character, and when we take into 

 consideration the circumstance that most erroneous 

 ideas at one time prevailed upon the subject of 

 worms, it is probable that these authors were mis- 

 taken in their observations. 



In infants at the breast worms have been more 

 frequently observed, and numerous cases are known 

 in which nematoid, trematode, and more often cestoid, 

 entozoa of considerable size have been seen in children 

 only a few months old. Some writers have brought 

 this fact forward as an argument in support of the 

 theory of spontaneous generation, or of that of here- 

 ditary transmission of worms ; but it appears rather 

 to serve as an evidence of the rapid growth of certain 

 species of entozoa, or of the influence exercised by 

 various accidental causes.^ 



* The frequent occurrence of tape-worm amongst children, of 

 from eight to twelve months of age, and still at the breast, who 

 were brought under my notice at the Metropolitan Free Hospital, 

 induced me to inquire into the reasons for this. In the majority 

 of cases, I learnt that the mothers, actuated by an erroneous 

 notion of strengthening the infants, or of sustaining them during 

 the day-time whilst they themselves went out to work, were in 

 the habit of occasionally giving the children pieces of raw meat 

 to suck. 



