504 COOPER CURTICE. 
notify the proper authorities of the existence of disease, and where 
it is verified by an examination of skilled veterinarians, allow no 
discretionary power to executive officers, but compel prompt 
slaughter. 
If these regulations are adhered to strictly, pleure-pneumonia 
will soon be exterminated, and if care is exercised, it never need 
be re-introduced; for it is not indigenous to American soil, but 
was in the first instance imported from abroad, and has slowly 
but surely spread from point to point, until it has assumed its 
present vast proportions. 
PROF, B. GRASSI ON THE TENIA NANA. 
By Cooper Curtice, D.Y.S. 
During the past year Prof. B. Grassi, of Catania, Italy, has 
been studying the life-history of Taenia nana and the result of 
his observations have been published in the Gentralblatt fur Bac- 
terioiogio und Parasiten hunde: Bond I, No. 4 and 9; Bd. II, 
No. 4 and 94; No. 10 and 282; No. 11 and 305. His study of 
this species leads to results so different from the hitherto estab¬ 
lished theory of the life history of the armed taenia that we are 
led to believe that there may be for some of the species, if not all, 
two methods of development. 
Prof. Grassi holds that Taenia nana, which is quite frequently 
found in Egyptians aud Italians, is identical with or a variety of 
Taenia murina, which infects rats (Mus decumanus). The experi¬ 
mental portion of Grassi’s studies were performed with Taenia 
murince: should his identification of the two species as the same, 
or varieties of the same, obtain, as he seems to firmly establish, 
then his studies will have a doubly important value. 
After vainly searching for the cysticercal stage of Taenia mur¬ 
ina through all of the more common species of snails, insects, 
myriopods, etc., which lived in or around the slaughter houses 
where all the rats examined were infected, he at length turned 
his attention to feeding the ripe proglottides to uninfected white 
}*ats. He succeeded in infecting them with large numbers of 
