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
of tapeworm amongst the people occupying any given area will bear a
strict relation to the amount of underdone measly beef consumed by the
inhabitants.
Another question, and one of great interest to sanitary science,
is that which I have raised in reference to the period that nature
requires for the destruction of the Cysticerci, or, in other words,
for the performance of a natural cure by calcareous degeneration of
the parasites. I have shown that all kinds of tapeworm larvæ (measles,
bladder-worms, cœnuri, and so forth) have a natural life-epoch assigned
to them, and in one of my experiments on a Dutch heifer or young cow I
demonstrated that a period of ten months was more than sufficient to
ensure the perfect destruction of the Cysticerci of cattle. Moreover,
this law or process of natural cure is not limited to cestode parasites,
but affects all other kinds of internal parasites in one or other of
their juvenile stages of growth. In the flesh of my experimental animal
I estimated that there were not less than 12,000 of these degenerated
Cysticerci. This positive contribution to our knowledge of the limits
assigned by nature to the epoch of larval activity is not merely one of
abstract scientific interest, but it has important practical bearings,
inasmuch as it points out in what way an entire herd of cattle (known
to be measled by the post-mortem examination of one animal previously
selected for the purpose, or for that matter, by the rather barbarous
act of excising and examining a fragment of the muscle of a living one)
may be freed of its parasitic guests; and it also shows how all risk of
propagating tapeworm, apart from the question of subjecting the flesh
to a certain temperature, may be effectually prevented. The stockowner
has but to remove his animals for six or eight months to localities
where no fresh infection can occur, when, at the expiration of the time
mentioned, all those Cysticerci that existed in the beasts at the time
of the transfer will have perished. The flesh of the animals may then be
eaten with impunity, whether well cooked or raw. This is an important
teaching deducible from experimental inquiry, and I am rather surprised
that it has hitherto escaped the notice of persons who, though they
affect to ignore the value of scientific researches, are particularly
anxious to parade their practical knowledge, which, unhappily, too often
proves a mere cloak for ignorance.
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