890 Recent Discoveries in Entozoology . 



below, done full justice to the physician (formerly) of Zittau. 

 Thus, in speaking of the small cysticerci, or measles of pigs, 

 whence we obtain one kind of tapeworm, ho says : — 



" Kuchenmeister hit upon the idea of administering the 

 measles as provender to other animals, and of studying the 

 changes which took place in the alimentary canal of the 

 quadrupeds thus fed. Such a trial might very naturally sug- 

 gest itself to any one, but this does not lessen the merit which 

 belongs to Kuchenmeister, seeing that the result was thoroughly 

 decisive. During the passage of the ' measles ' through the 

 stomach, they lost their caudal vesicle, which part had pre- 

 viously so strikingly distinguished them, the thin walls suc- 

 cumbing to the influence of the digestive fluids ; only when the 

 quadrupeds were proper hosts did the cephalic ends of the 

 cysticerci resist the action of digestion. In this case they 

 passed on, together with the contents of the stomach, into the 

 intestines, in order to anchor themselves here by means of their 

 sucking appendages, and also to stretch and grow into the 

 adult tapeworm condition (Jahrb. s. 629)." 



Besides these experiments on animals, it is well known that 

 Kuchenmeister was permitted to feed two condemned crimi- 

 nals, to one of whom he administered seventy-five measles of 

 pigs three days before his execution, the other having eaten 

 twenty measles on two separate occasions, at considerable in- 

 tervals. In the first case ten very young tapeworms, only a few 

 lines in length, were found after death, and in the second expe- 

 riment nineteen were found, eleven of which had advanced to 

 the condition of maturity. Subsequently, several young men, 

 Ave are told, voluntarily came forward in the interests of science, 

 and swallowed fresh measles, and three or four months after- 

 wards showed unmistakeable signs of suffering from tapeworm. 

 They were, we presume, deprived of their internal guests by 

 the employment of the ordinary remedies, when, at least, they 

 had satisfied themselves that they had played the part of host 

 long enough. 



But it is neither the measles of pork producing the Tcvnia 

 solium of man, nor the mcasle-like cysticerci of calves and 

 oxen, producing the Ttvnia mediocanellata (equally common 

 amongst our veal and beef-loving community) ; nor, again, the 

 Oxyurix, vexing children ; nor the Trichince of sausages and 

 hams, and the closely allied species of Ascarides (which we 

 probably obtain by drinking unfiltered* water) ; it is not, we 

 say, any of these forms about which we need particularly 

 trouble ourselves jusl now, but it is in reference to that most 

 fatal of all disease-producing parasites, the so-called Ecliinococcus, 

 to which wo now most especially desire to call attention. 



Veterinarians, sheep-breeders, stockinastcrs, and others 



