Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the EctozoaCobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Science
Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the Ectozoa
Cobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Helminths; Parasites
“In the pig the diagnostic sign of swellings of the glands or ‘cyst’
under the tongue is not found in ‘Cysticercus,’ and the disease called
‘measles’ is not ‘Cysticercus,’ but a mere superficial inflammation of
the skin and a symptom of fever. ‘_Cysticercus cellulosus_,’ as its
name shows, infects the cellular tissue only of the pig, and cannot be
discovered in life by any abnormal condition of skin.
“In ‘measles’ these swellings are found, because intestinal mucous
membrane sympathises with eruption on the skin and are then merely
inflamed glands, not cysts.”
Dr Neill concludes his report by remarking that the larvæ of the
beef tapeworm can “only arrive at maturity in the mucous membrane of
horned cattle,” and not in the cellular tissue. This is an error on
Dr Neill’s part; but in adducing these instructive extracts from the
Government Reports my chief object has been to show the prevalence of
Cysticercus in the North-West Provinces of the Indian Peninsula. I may
say that a large proportion of my tapeworm-infected patients have been
officers from the Punjab, and one of these victims told me that when he
superintended the serving out of rations to the troops, “he (and those
who acted with him) sent the meat away to be burnt, even when they only
detected a single cyst in any given carcase.” It is needless to remark
that such a waste of valuable food is altogether reprehensible.
Some people, including not a few of the profession, make light of the
occurrence of tapeworm, and I have seen many patients who had been told
by their usual medical advisers that the presence of the worms was of
little consequence. To account for this wide-spread error there is some
basis in the fact that by far the majority of infested persons suffer
only the trifling inconvenience arising from the passage _per anum_ of
the proglottides; moreover, the less civilised the tapeworm-bearers
happen to be, the less are they likely to suffer. The recorded
experience of Kaschin, before referred to, where 500 hospital patients,
in the Baikal district, had tapeworm, although all of them were being
treated for other disorders, affords another argument tending to the
same conclusion. On the other hand, amongst Europeans only a small
percentage of tapeworm-patients suffer severely. But without trenching
upon the symptomatology and prognosis of tapeworm disease, I may remark
that I have (in my Manual) summarised the whole facts of cysticercal
prevalence within the compass of two brief propositions:--1. The
prevalence or the rarity of Cysticerci in cattle in any given country
must be determined primarily by the habits of the people; for since the
beef measle can only result from the ingestion by the ox of the eggs of
the _Tænia mediocanellata_, it is clear that the degree of infection of
cattle will correspond with the facilities offered by egg-dispersion.
2. It may be affirmed that the frequency of this particular species
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