THE T^NIA SOLIUM. 75 



even more taeniae exist at the same time in the same 

 individual. 



It is most usually met with in adults, but no 

 period of life is completely exempt from it, and it 

 has even been recorded in infants at the breast, or 

 in very yoimg children.^ The age at which it is 

 most frequently seen in European countries is from 

 the fifteenth to the thirty-fifth year ; in Abyssinia 

 it is said to occur at all ages. 



Females are more subject to taenia than males, 

 the relative proportion between the two sexes being, 

 according to some writers, nearly twice as great in 

 the former as in the latter sex. 



Some authors, judging from the circumstance that 

 taenia is sometimes present in several members, both 

 old and young, of the same family, have supposed 

 that it may be transmitted hereditarily ; but it would 

 be more correct to conclude that several individuals 

 in the same family, bemg exposed to the same 

 errors in diet, may thus become affected with this 

 entozoon. 



It is also to some peculiarity connected with the 

 manner of Uving that the so-called epidemics of 

 taenia, which attacks a whole family, or several fami- 

 lies residing in the same locality, ought probably to 

 be attributed. 



Persons who suffer from taenia pass, at intervals, 

 considerable portions of the worm with the stools, 

 either spontaneously, or as the result of the adminis- 

 tration of anthelmintics ; or else they void frequently, 

 or even daily, some free, live segments {cucurhitini) ; 



^ Por an explanation of this fact, see the note at page 57. 



