FOOT (A. W.) NOTES ON THE DISSECTION OF SOME ANIMALS. 47 



mature Taeniae have been successfully reared from all vesicular worms 

 when a suitable host is selected. 



It is remarkable that two species of animals belonging to the Eo- 

 dentia — one of them the hare, and the other the rabbit, or some cognate 

 animal (for there is a dispute about the proper translation of the Hebrew 

 name Shaphan) — were forbidden to be used as food by the Mosaic law, 

 and were coupled in the prohibition with the pig, all these being well 

 known to harbour Cysticerci in abundance : from this Kuchenmeister 

 concludes that the measly disease of pork was well known to Moses.* 

 Aristotle speaks of the Cysticerci as a disorder of the pig which, in his 

 time, had been known for ages; f and it is not be wondered at that the 

 ancients dreaded the consequences of eating diseased pork, if we are to 

 believe the account given by Ibn Adart, in an old Arabian chronicle, of 

 the sufferings and treatment of patients afflicted with tape-worms : — 

 " Then God tried him with a disagreeable disorder, which is called 

 chabb-al-kar (pumpkin-grain), which consists in a worm fixing itself at 

 the issue of his anus, which gnawed the intestine and the neighbouring 

 parts. Then large ram's tails were brought in order that he might in- 

 sert them into him, so that the worms might gnaw tbese instead of 

 him, and he might thus obtain a little rest. "When these were again 

 drawn out, they were all gnawed to pieces by the worms, and new ones 

 were then applied to the anus. The worms, however, did not cease to 

 gnaw until his genitals fell off, and he in consequence died." Kiichen- 

 meister considers rightly that this account refers to a case of cancer of 

 the rectum complicated with tape-worm.^: 



It is well known that Jews and Mahommedans who live strictly 

 according to their religious precepts are saved a good deal of annoyance 

 by their abstinence from the flesh of the pig, exempting them from the 

 attacks of tape-worms; and still more secure are the Carthusian monks, 

 who never partake of either meat or milk, but live mostly on fish ; for 

 their professional attendant, Eeinlein, states that he never met among 

 them a person who had suffered from tape-worm, and was assured 

 by the oldest fathers that they never remembered any of their associates 

 to have been troubled with them. This is a different state of things 

 from that which exists in Abyssinia, where, from the quantities of raw 

 meat eaten by the natives, tape-worm is so common that it is thought 

 an unwholesome thing to be without them ; but here beside the cause 

 grows the cure in the celebrated anthelminthic tree, kousso, which is 

 carefully preserved as being indispensable to the health of the inhabi- 

 tants, and a group of them is always found in the immediate vicinity of, 

 the villages ; to mark the importance attached to this remedy, there is 

 not a village near Angolalla without a tree of this species in its neigh- 

 bourhood, from which circumstance it has obtained the name of 

 " Dewasa Kosso" — " may God give you kosso."§ 



* "On Parasites," vol. i., p. 13. f " Hist. Animal.," lib. viii., sec. 21. 



X Op. cit., vol. i., p. 107. § " Dublin Medical Journal," vol. xxvii., p. 151. 



