FILTHY HABITS OF THE ABYSSINIANS. 473 



SO exclusive in the choice of their food as our European horned cattle, 

 which are better kept and in cleaner stalls. Fleming has himself 

 seen oxen and sheep, as well as pigs, devouring human excreta with 

 great satisfaction. As the principal seats of the infection he rightly 

 regards the dirty pools and sloughs in the neighbourhood of the 

 Indian villages, where the manure of the district is collected, and 

 along with it the eggs and joints of the universally distributed tape- 

 worms. These are afterwards still more dispersed by the rain, and 

 carried into thecistcrns,^ the contents of which are always polluted 

 with excreta, so that the animals are infected by drinking as well as 

 by grazing. 



The frequency and distribution of the bladder- worms from the ox 

 in Abyssinia seems to be due to very similar circumstances. This 

 I learn from a communication from Schimper to Al. Braun, which 

 lies before me in the original, but which, so far as I know, has not 

 yet been published. The bladder-worms are, he says, really forced 

 upon the ox by a very blameworthy practice of the inhabitants. 

 The Abyssinians, he continues, ease themselves in the open air, not 

 far from their dwellings, and indeed regularly at daybreak, in the 

 early grey of morning. At this time whole companies of them may 

 be seen daily cowering upon the ground in conversation. Tlieir 

 clothing, which is like a white bed-cover, envelops the whole body 

 from the shoulders downwards, and also covers the spot on which 

 they sit. One thus perceives nothing of what is really taking place, 

 but only sees people cowering down at some distance from each other 

 and talking. To a stranger it seems very surprising that every day 

 a company should assemble to talk at such an unusual hour in the 

 open air, and in the cold and damp of the morning; the real 

 business is still hidden from him ; and even afterwards he finds it 

 difficult to understand how the Abyssinians find it pleasanter to do 

 in company and for quarter of an hour what others do hurriedly and 

 in secret. After this matter is accomplished, the cattle are let out of 

 the shed. But they have to remain in the neighbourhood until the 

 bread for the herdsmen is baked and eaten. Only then are they 

 driven off to pasture. Meanwhile they remain in a place in which 

 millions of tape-worm eggs have just been deposited, many of which 

 have of course been transferred to grass and herbs and loose straw. 

 The cattle, eating these substances, swallow the eggs along with 

 them, and afterwards become infected with bladder-worms. 



I must, however, expressly mention that Schimper had no know- 

 ledge of the investigations instituted in Europe regarding the con- 



' Dr. Oliver has also distinctly proved by microscopic investigation thepresence of 

 tape-worm eggs in the cistern-jvatgr of the Punjaub. ,.^ 



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