48 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. I, No. i 
extent shall either be condemned or rendered into tallow, according to 
the degree of infestation, although theoretically there is no objection 
from the hygienic standpoint to passing affected mutton for food after 
the parasites have been removed. Practically, however, it is impossible 
in many cases to remove the parasites, because such extensive dissection 
would be required that there would be but little left of the meat when 
the parasites had been removed. Consequently, therefore, a large 
number of sheep carcasses which are retained by inspectors on account 
of measles go either to the tallow tank or to the condemned tank, because 
the character of the infestation is such that it is impracticable to remove 
the parasites. 
At first thought it might seem that the loss on account of these con¬ 
demnations would fall on the butcher, as the sheep are already bought 
and paid for before they are passed upon by the meat inspector, but as 
a matter of fact the producer is made to bear at least a part of the loss. 
When a condition involving losses on account of condemnations exists 
among live stock and continues to prevail, the butchers naturally and 
invariably make ample allowances in the prices paid for the probable 
loss from condemnations based upon their experience as to losses in 
the past, so that the producer, although he may not realize it, is made 
to bear more or less of the burden, sharing it, perhaps, with the con¬ 
sumer, to whom it is likely the butcher will pass on a portion of his loss. 
The Federal meat-inspection records, as already noted, indicate that 
tapeworm cysts in the muscles of sheep are common throughout the 
West, and furthermore, it is safe to say that the proportionate number 
of cases of sheep measles found on post-mortem inspection, already 
representing a high percentage, will continue to increase as meat inspec¬ 
tors become more expert in detecting the presence of the parasites. 
The natural consequence will be that sooner or later, if this is not already 
the case, the sheep raiser will suffer a reduction in the selling price of 
his product below that which he would receive were it not for the losses 
from condemnations experienced by the butcher. 
This indirect loss is in all probability not the only loss experienced 
by the sheep raiser. It has already been noted that in the experiments 
five of the lambs died in from 13 to 23 days after infestation. These died 
approximately in the order of the size of the doses of tapeworm eggs 
given, those receiving the smallest doses surviving the longest. Three 
of them received only the eggs contained in a single tapeworm segment, 
the other two receiving 3 and 10 segments, respectively. The sixth 
sheep, which survived, received only one-half of a segment, yet the num¬ 
ber of eggs was sufficient to make the animal sick for a time, corre¬ 
sponding probably to the period during which the embryonic worms were 
invading and establishing themselves in the muscles. Quite clearly, 
therefore, the sheep-measle parasite is deadly in its effects upon sheep, 
provided a sufficient number of tapeworm eggs are swallowed, and even 
