INFLUENCE OF AGE AND SEX. 543 



jn the case of the pig (p. 495). If the same conditions held good in 

 regard to man, then the maximum occurrence would be reached at the 

 end of childhood and not after maturity. 



Especially striking and surprising is the above-mentioned case of 

 Gysticercus in a child " some days old." It is so well worth attention, 

 that one cannot but lament the brevity with which it is mentioned. 

 Since the bladder-worms are hardly recognisable as such " some days " 

 after their introduction, but require, as we have seen, two months for 

 their development, the infection must surely have taken place during 

 fcEtal life.^ It is possible that the mother was infected, and that 

 from this source the foetus was penetrated by the wandering brood. 

 The six-hooked embryos might easily pass in some way or other (by 

 the blood-vessels ?) to the young, and would there gradually become 

 Cysticerci either in the muscles or in other organs. 



The process which we here suppose is not perfectly isolated, since 

 we know of other Helminths, which, during their internal wanderings, 

 pass from the maternal body into the embryo (p. 67, note) ; but after 

 all the entirely negative results which we have in this connection in 

 regard to Trichina,'-' we were but little prepared to find this pheno- 

 menon exhibited in the case of Cysticerci. 



It is a surprising fact that the majority of patients suffering from 

 bladder-worms are males, while T. solium is much more frequent in 

 women. There is no doubt as to the fact, which is evidenced not 

 only by Dressel's tables, but also by Ktichenmeister's reports on 

 Cysticerci^ in the brain, and by the observations of v. Graefe on the 

 occurrence of bladder-worms in the eye.* Of the 87 cases noted by 

 Dressel,53 were males (2'4 per cent.) and only 34 females (1'6 per cent.). 

 Kiichenmeister found that among men Cysticerci in the brain were 

 almost half as numerous again as among women, while v. Graefe 

 reports that almost two-thirds of the 80 cases of bladder-worm in 

 the eye belonged to the male sex. 



This constant preponderance of the male sex shows, of course, 

 that infection with embryos of Taenia is favoured by the habits and 

 customs of men. It may be suggested at least that women are more 

 orderly and on the whole more cleanly than men. 



' We do not know the meaning of "some days," but it is possible that the infection 

 took place during birth ; that the child in passing through the vagina might, along with 

 the secretion, swallow some proglottides or eggs issuing from a Tcenia living in the in- 

 testine of the mother. The eggs have, according to Lewin, been found by Hausmann in 

 the mouth of the child. 



^ See Vol. II. 



" "Ueberdie Cysticercen des Hims und ihr Verhaltniss zu Lahmungen, Epilepsie 

 und Geisteskrankheiten," Oesterr. Zeitsokr. f. pract. Heillc., 1868. 



' " Bemerkungen fiber Cysticerous, " Archiv f. Ophthalmologic, loc. cit. 



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