544 OCCURRENCE AND RESULTS OF CYSTICERCUS CELLULOSA 



The above fact leads us to the question — By what ways and means 

 does man become infected by these embryos ? Of course an infection 

 of some sort must precede the appearance of Cysticerci. The days in 

 which one believed in a direct transmission of bladder-worms from 

 " measly " flesh are so long past, that it seems incredible when we 

 read, e.g., that even in 1851 Kiichenmeister regarded not only those 

 who reared and killed swine, &c., but also those working with raw 

 leather and skin, as peculiarly liable to bladder- worm disease.^ 



The most direct and most frequent source of infection is, of 

 course, in the eggs, which are dispersed round about the abode of the 

 tape-worm, and are also widely distributed in the open air with the 

 excrement. Invisible to the , naked eye, they may easily pass more 

 or less directly into man. Sometimes in drinking water or in vege- 

 tarian diet, sometimes in food into which the embryos have acci- 

 dentally found their way, or by the hand, to which they have adhered. 

 A dirty, untidy, crowded house increases the risk of infection enor- 

 mously, and hence the frequency of the disease is (according to Stein) 

 much greater among the lower classes. 



Where the infection is due to isolated eggs, the resulting bladder- 

 worms occur either singly or in small numbers. But this is not 

 always the case. On the whole, the numbers found in man are much 

 smaller than in the pig. And lately the results of v. Graefe and 

 Dressel have shown that cases of solitary occurrence are very fre- 

 quent.' But there are also cases known in which the bladder-worms 

 were as numerous as in the abundantly infected swine. Thus Stich 

 dissected a woman, a turf carrier, in whose muscles and subcutane- 

 ous tissue between 400 and 500 bladder- worms at least could be 

 counted. Lanceraux reports also the case of a rag-picker,^ whose 

 muscles, especially in the thorax, were so abundantly penetrated by 

 bladder-worms, that their number was estimated at over 1000. 

 Similarly Lessing* reports the presence of more than 1000 Cysticerci 

 in the body of an insane patient. In Bonhomme^ we read of a 

 patient seventy-seven years old, who, besides 900 bladder-worms in 

 the muscles, bore also upwards of 2000 in the subcutaneous tissue, 

 besides numerous specimens in the brain and lungs. A policeman, 

 thirty-two years old, who died with severe symptoms of cerebral 

 disease, exhibited on dissection numerous Cysticerci in the brain, and 

 also a great number of muscle bladder-worms, especially in the ex- 



^ Archiv f. pathol. Anat., Bd. iv., p. 65, 1851. 



' Dressel's reports yield the surprising result that in almost 37 per cent, there was 

 but one Cysticercus. 



" Archiv. ginir. mid., t. xx., p. 545, 1872. 



* Schmidt's Jahrbucher, Bd. xcix., p. 98, 1858. 



' Comptes rendus soc. bioL, t, v., p. 62, 1S64, or Ai-chiv, g6n(r. mM., t. i., p. 355, 1865. 



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