354 BNTOZOA. 



" to observe that parasitic maladies in the pig specially abound in 

 that section of the United Kingdom where swine live most amongst 

 human beings. The Yorkshire and Berkshire pigs, in their native 

 counties, inclosed in the farmyards of their breeders, are free from 

 worms which are likely to live in the body of man. The Irish pig 

 is the one most commonly injured by Entozoa, and the reason for 

 this is evident when we know how much the cottager relies on rearing 

 a porker which is permitted the free range of house and road, where 

 every description of filth is devoured, charged with the ova of 

 parasites expelled by man, or some of the lower animals." He also 

 adds, " The conditions under which we live in the British isles are 

 certainly much less favourable to the propagation of worms ; but 

 we disregard, in our ignorance, the most common precautions to 

 protect ourselves from loathsome diseases, and not only permit dogs 

 to eat any kind of oflFal in and around slaughterhouses, but sanction 

 the existence of piggeries where all kinds of garbage, charged with 

 worms or their eggs, are daily devoured by swine. The majority 

 of germs calculated to engender parasites are to be found in abun- 

 dance in the contents of the ahmentary canal of human beings and 

 domestic quadrupeds. If pigs are permitted to eat these, as in 

 Ireland or in many British piggeries, we must expect hams, bacon, 

 and pork sausages to be charged with the embryonic forms of hu- 

 man Entozoa. Whereas, in Iceland, then, the dog is the victim of 

 human negligence, and en revanche the cause of human disease, in 

 the British Isles the pig holds this unenviable position : the more, 

 however, we learn of parasitic disease in man, the better we can 

 understand how even the underdone roast beef of Old Englaijd may 

 prove to us poison as well as food, and how the dog or the cat we 

 pet may indirectly shorten our days. We have good reason to be- 

 lieve, with Moses, that the pig is an unclean beast ; but without dis- 

 carding him from the scanty list of animals to be eaten, it is evi- 

 dent that we can purify the race of swine, and thus prevent human 

 as well as porcine maladies." 



Such considerations as these must surely tend to open the 



