CONDITIONS INFLUENCING LIABILITY TO INFECTION. 481 



much more frequently from tape-worms than others. It has for 

 example long been known that the female sex is much more fre- 

 quently infected than the male ; and further, that cooks, butchers, and 

 tavern-keepers, in short all those people who have to do with the 

 preparation of animal food, furnish an important contingent of tape- 

 worm patients. This is very well shown by the calculations made by 

 Wawruch.i Among 173 tape-worm patients, who (since the observa- 

 tions were made in Vienna) must have suffered mostly from Tcenia 

 saginata, he found no fewer than thirty -nine cooks, twenty-six maid- 

 servants, and thirteen innkeepers, butlers, and butchers. This does 

 not take into account the large number of housewives, who, as Waw- 

 ruch's patients belonged chiefly to the lower and middle classes, must 

 have been very generally busied in the kitchen. The proportion of 

 the female tape-worm hosts to the male was almost 2:1 (117:56). 

 Most of the patients were in middle life (between twenty-five and 

 fifty), when there is, as a rule, a great relish for flesh. 



The fact that in the present conditions of European life any oppor- 

 tunity for the acquisition of the tape-worm is, on the whole, somewhat 

 rare, is due mainly to the circumstance that Tcenia saginata occurs as 

 a rule singly, unlike T. solium, whose larval forms, as we have seen, 

 are much more frequently associated than those of the related species. 

 To this fact the former owes its designation " Ver solitaire," which is 

 found so far back as Andry, and was all the more used by the French 

 physicians, since, in consequence of an etymology which we have seen 

 to be erroneous (p. 411), the epithet "solium" was also applied to the 

 solitary worm. On the other hand, the very general use of the name 

 in France shows that the tape-worm indigenous to that country is 

 principally T. saginata."^ 



But sometimes two or three, or even morC; examples of Tcenia 

 saginata are found in the same intestine,^ as has been often observed, 

 and is shown, for example, by the fact that Wawruch's 173 patients 

 harboured altogether 206 worms. Of course such great numbers as are 

 found in the Buratis (fifteen specimens in one intestine) can hardly 

 ever occur with us. 



From our present knowledge of the life-history and mode of 

 transmission of these parasites, it need not surprise us that, in 

 some cases, several members of the same family suffer at the same 



' " Praktisohe Monographie der Bandwurmkrankheit : " Vienna, 1874. 



" Indeed I have in two cases identified tape-worms procured in France (Paris and 

 Nice) with the above. 



' From Kiichenmeister's work (p. 192) I extract the fact that the Tiibingen Patho- 

 logical Institute possesses four examples of T. sayinata from one intestine, and that Dr. 

 PfafF in Zittau also expelled seven from one patient at one time. 



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