484 OCCUEKENCE AND MEDICINAL SIGNIFICANCE. 



meister speaks of from fifteen to twenty) ought always to he taken as 

 an indication of the presence of several worms. 



Attempts to rear the adult worm in animals have hitherto failed. 

 So far as I know, however, these experiments are confined to the case 

 of a dog. During three days, this animal ate hundreds of bladder- 

 worms, but four hours after the last meal, nothing was found but some 

 heads in the stomach and beginning of the small intestine. 



The life of the present species seems often to be very long. At 

 any rate it is not at all rare for the patients to evacuate proglottides 

 almost daily for years. One of my Eussian students harboured two 

 tape-worms for more than five years. In another case the disease 

 continued for more than eight years. ^ Wawruch mentions several 

 cases which lasted from twenty to twenty-five years, and in one case 

 speaks even of thirty-five years. Of course it is doubtful whether 

 this is always the effect of the same tape-worm. If, in a disease that 

 is apparently of long standing, the evacuation of the proglottides cease 

 for months and even for years, and then suddenly begin again, we 

 may safely conclude that the infection has been repeated. Several 

 cases of this kind are recorded by Davaine. ^ 



Regarding the death of the tape-worm we know of course even 

 less. But it is very probable that after its death, which of course 

 always severs the former adhesion, it is generally expelled pretty 

 quickly along with the other contents of the intestine, and 

 without undergoing much alteration in form or condition. If it 

 remain longer in the intestine, it may, like the retained proglottis 

 mentioned by Schimper, gradually undergo maceration, and then be 

 ejected in a hardly recognisable mass. In rare cases a kind of 

 mummification takes place. The problematical body which Pro- 

 fessor Aitken found in the intestine of a soldier, and gave to 

 Cobbold, who mentions it in his work on Helminths,^ was nothing 

 else than a mummified Taenia saginata, which I could clearly identify 

 from some pieces which were sent me for closer' investigation. In 

 addition to this case, Kilchenmeister has recently recorded a mum- 

 mified * Tcenia, observed by Ziirn and Meyer, which was voided by 

 a strong man suffering from a violent attack of colic. Owing to the 

 kindness of my honoured colleague, I have been able to examine 

 the latter more closely, and have also made the accompanying sketch 

 of it. Like Cobbold's preparation, it appeared to be a nearly cylin- 



^ Cobbold knows many cases in which the patient had suffered from tape-worm for 

 five, six, ten, or even eleven years, and had voided proglottides uninterruptedly. See 

 " Worms : a Series of Lectures on Practical Helminthology," Lect. 4 to 8 ; London, 1872. 



' hoc. cit., second edition, p. 102. 



» "Entozoa," p. 415 : London, 1864. 



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