206 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



early life of the Bothriocephalidse, that, as Kiichenmeister remarks, the 

 present geographical conditions of all the places where men are subject 

 to the broad Tapeworm can be looked at in a common point of view. 

 They all lie in low situations, and in large marshy districts, on the 

 shores of rivers and lakes, or of the sea, and especially in places liable 

 to inundation, all pointing to the piscine origin of the infection. 



I have brought this worm before the Society because the Bothrio- 

 cephali, to which I have no doubt it belongs, though found in the in- 

 testines of higher fishes, or of the marine birds of prey which feed upon 

 those fishes, are extremely rare in all terrestrial Mammalia.* Of the 

 six specimens in the College of Surgeons of England, one is from a 

 native of Switzerland ; one from a Russian, belonging to the Russian 

 embassy ; one from a person who had been travelling in Switzerland ; 

 a fourth happened in the practice of Dr. Gull, in the person of a little 

 girl from "Woolwich, where there is always a number of foreign ships 

 and sailors, bringing with them native food and water ; another was 

 passed by a native of Russia, who, after a long residence in England, 

 paid a temporary visit to his birthplace, and returned to England with 

 this parasite as a pleasant memento of his native country.f 



The Tcznia solium, or narrow Tapeworm, has been observed in inha- 

 bitants of St. Petersburgh after the adoption of a raw meat diet, as, for 

 instance, after the treatment of "Weisse for diarrhoea ; and in the cases 

 that were met with it was explicitly stated to be the Tcenia solium that 

 was expelled. Von Siebold^: remarks that "the statements wouldhave been 

 much more to be suspected if in the Tapeworms that were passed the 

 Bothrioceplialus latus, so general in Russia and Poland, had been recog- 

 nised, since this worm is never met with amongst our cattle in a scolex 

 condition." 



In the " Medical Times and Gazette" for September, 1861, there is 

 an account of the sufferings of a Polar Bear, in the Zoological Gardens 

 of Dresden, from a species of broad Tapeworm, perhaps identical with 

 this one. The Bear, which was only a few months old, was one day seen 

 to run about in his cage in a state of great alarm, dragging along white 

 thread after him, of which he in vain endeavoured to get rid. One of 

 the keepers tried, to quiet the animal by petting it, while the other 

 roiled the thread upon a stick, and thus removed as much of it as possible. 

 The keepers saw that it was a worm ; but having placed it in water 

 instead of spirits, in a few a days after, when it was handed over to 

 Kuchenmeister for examination, it had become entirely decomposed, 

 and no joints were to be recognised. A microscopical examination of 

 the fluid showed oval-shaped eggs, with lids. Kiichenmeister con- 

 cluded that the infection had taken place from the fish with which the 

 Ice Bear was fed. Soon after the first part of the worm had come away, 



* Kiichenmeister, op. cit., 103. 



+ Aitken's " Practical Medicine," 1st ed., vol. ii., p. 91. 



J Von Siebold on "Worms," Syd. Soc, p. 87. 



