367 
SCIEI^TIFIC SUMMARY. 
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AGRICULTURE. 
The Utilization of Sewage may be regarded as the only important matter 
connected with farming which has received much attention during the past 
quarter. Several pamphlets have been written upon it, each one suggesting 
a different means of reducing the sewage to a condition fit for transport. The 
more general view, however, as elicited by the debate in the House of Com- 
mons on Lord R. Montague’s bill, appears to be that the sewage must not be 
deprived of its watery element. In Cornwall, where enormous quantities of 
clay are transferred from one place to another, it has been found necessary to 
mix the earth with water, in order to facilitate its conveyance. In this state 
it has been transmitted through tubes, and, strange to say, at a considerable 
reduction of the expense formerly incurred when it was carried by other 
means in its solid state. Among the many pamphlets which have been 
addressed to the British public in relation to sewage, there is one which 
stands out prominently from its fellows, in the circumstance that it contains 
powerful arguments against the utilization of this material. It has been 
written by Dr. Spencer Cobbold, the well-known investigator of intestinal 
worms ; and from the fact of its viewing the subject from quite a new stand- 
point, it is of interest. Zoologists know that the common tapeworm of man, 
which we may select as an example of the more generally distributed entozoa, 
is propagated by eggs which must undergo the first stages of theic develop- 
ment in the bodies of some of the lower mammals. In the present state of 
things, the ova of this creature, which may be computed for London at some 
millions per annum, are yearly, ay daily, washed away into the Thames, and 
are thus destroyed. If, however, says Dr. Cobbold, you spread the sewage 
over the country, you will supply these ova with the conditions favourable to 
their development. They will be swallowed by our domestic animals, will 
in them complete the earlier stages of their growth, and will eventually take 
up their abode within ourselves. Thus, by distributing the sewage over our 
farms we will be literally adding fuel to the parasitic fire. This will go on 
increasing every year till, in course of time, the whole population will become 
infested by these creatures, and then it wiU be too late to cry out for assist- 
ance. It appears to us that Dr. Cobbold very greatly exaggerates the danger, 
for that there is a risk no reasonable naturalist can deny. In the first place 
he should remember that there is every probability that the great bulk of the 
ova would perish before finding the requisite condition for their development. 
Secondly, it must be admitted that an improved system of feeding our cattle 
would do away with much of the liability to entozootic diseases. Still we 
must confess that there is a serious danger to the population involved in the 
