16 BULLETIN 260, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUBE. 



or larval tapeworm, is very small and develops in the dog flea 

 or louse instead of such an animal as the sheep. The flea or louse 

 ingests the eggs of the tapeworm by biting the skin of the dog 

 where it is contaminated by the feces of the animal or by soil 

 containing eggs from the feces, or possibly by biting the tape- 

 worm segments containing the eggs as these segments pass from 

 the dog. Within the flea or louse the egg develops into a larval 

 tapeworm, necessarily a very small larva, known as a cryptocystis. 

 Owing to the pain and irritation resulting from the bites of these 

 fleas and lice, the dog will from time to time root out the offenders 

 and inadvertently or intentionally, as the case may be, swallow them. 

 In the stomach of the dog the fleas and lice are digested and the little 

 tapeworm larva set free to pass on to the intestine and develop into 

 a tapeworm, which may attain a length of 35 centimeters, or about 

 14 inches. 



When flea-infested or lousy dogs are allowed unwarranted privi- 

 leges in the house, permitted to put their paws on the table during 

 meals, to eat from the same dinner plates and saucers, to lick the 

 baby's face and the children's candy, to sleep at the foot of a person's 

 bed or on a pillow near a person's head, the chance of a flea landing 

 unperceived in food that will hold and conceal the flea, the chance of 

 its getting to the baby's mouth or adhering to the sticky candy which 

 the child eats with no regard to incidental contamination, is very 

 good. Under such conditions the ingestion of fleas or lice infested 

 with the larval tapeworm in question is likely to occur, and the result 

 is the development of the adult tapeworm in the person ingesting 

 them. This tapeworm has been found in children more frequently 

 than in grown persons, in one case in a baby only two months old, but 

 it has been found in an adult 38 years old. As many as 238 worms 

 have been found in a single person. Up to date, 76 cases of this tape- 

 worm in man, usually in children, have been reported, and a number 

 of these are from the United States. 



The remedy here concerns the family dog rather than the stray. 

 The dog should be treated like a dog, not like a person. The dog 

 is an animal with its habits fixed by all the facts that arise from the 

 one fact that it is a dog. The fact that a dog is not a person, that 

 it is different from people, is important. The lack of hands compels 

 the dog to use his tongue for a wash rag, but we are under no such 

 necessity, and there is nothing in the situation that calls for our per- 

 mitting our own or our neighbor's dog to use the same tongue sub- 

 sequently on our hands or face. It is an absurdity to ask that the 

 cook and the table service be clean and then allow a dog to put his 

 feet on the table, to sniff at the food, to lick the hand or face, and to 



