Recent Discoveries in Entozoology . 391 



practically- acquainted with the diseases of our domesticated 

 animals, are at length exerting themselves to ascertain the best 

 methods by which their flocks and herds may be rendered secure 

 from the invasion of certain of the above-mentioned entozoa ; 

 but few, if any, of their number are probably aware how much 

 more disastrous to human life are the larvse of a small tapeworm 

 which lives in the intestines of the dog. In those countries 

 where this animal is well nigh indispensable to human life, it is 

 at one and the same time both a curse and a blessing. The 

 tapeworm (Tcenia echinococcus) of the dog produces a larva which 

 annually destroys its hundreds and its thousands of the human 

 race ; and sad is it to reflect that the disease thus produced is 

 too often, through sheer ignorance, multiplied and propagated 

 by those who pretend to be able to cure the disease. In happy 

 England fatal cases are of constant occurrence, but it is in Ice- 

 land that this disease assumes a formidable endemic character. 

 According to Leuckart and Dr. Krabbe (a pupil of the recently 

 deceased savan, Eschricht, of Copenhagen), who has specially 

 visited the country to investigate the disease, the following 

 facts may be relied on : — 



"For every 100 inhabitants of Iceland there are 1100 head 

 of horned cattle, and every peasant has on an average six dogs. 

 In Denmark there are 180 cattle to every 100 of the people. 

 There are many of the Iceland doctors who, not unfrequently, 

 have upwards of 100 patients afflicted with the Echinococcus 

 disease under treatment at the same time, the total number of 

 such cases in the island being estimated at 10,000. By far the 

 greater number of these patients, however, are in the hands of 

 quacks, whose influence is the greater, because there are in all 

 Iceland but six legally authorized medical men, each of whom 

 presides over a district of about 1500 square (English) miles, 

 embracing a population of aboutl0,000 individuals. The treat- 

 ment of the quacks is exactly suited to keep up the epidemic, for, 

 amongst their remedies, dog's urine and fresh dog-excrement play a 

 conspicuous part. (Jahrb. s. 654.)" 



These statistics are truly appalling ! We have here a 

 forcible illustration of the falsity of the proverb, which says, 

 u Where ignorance is bliss, it were folly to be wise." Would 

 it be folly to get up a Social Science Congress at Eeikjavik, and, 

 in the name of humanity and intelligence, appeal to the Ice- 

 landic parliament to put down these evil practices with the 

 strong arm ; at- the same time taking every opportunity to 

 enlighten this grossly ignorant population ? Superficial, good- 

 natured unintellectual observers may look on complacently, and 

 even, perhaps, remark that the Echinococcus epidemic is one of 

 those mysterious dispensations of Providence which we ought 

 to accept submissively, without looking too minutely into the 



