Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-10-29

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when the dog is irritated by the lice,
it attacks. bites, and frequently swal-
| lows the offending external parasite.
In this way the louse-measle is trans
ferred to the dogs intestinal canal,
where. In course of time, it develops it
self into the sexually mature cucumer-
inc tape.wOrm. "
The disorder in swine called measles,
and tape-worms, which give existence
to small bladders, often microscopic,
called hydatid cysts, have received less
attention than their prevalence and
Importance demand. As has been just
" remarked, tape-worm eggs may be
scattered on all kinds of food, and all
sorts of animals, man included, run
the risk of becoming infested with hy-
datids, or measles, and with possible
tape-worm in the organs of digestion.
The Larvae of these worms are found in
animal tissues; and hogs and dogs, as
well as persons who eat flesh not prop
erly cooked. are quite subject to the
attacks Of this very prolific parasite.
Independently Of industrial or eco
nomical considerations in regard to
tape-worms, hydatids and measles in
dogs, hogs, sheep, horses and cattle, in
ell of which they are found, we should
study these creatures for the light they
throw on the ways Of great nature in
sustaining animal life. The tape-worm
has an immense number Of eggs formed
in every section u its body of many
joints; and, when the time comes for
laying, these joints separate, and one
worm may become a dozen or more.
As the bot-bee or fly must spend part
of its existence outside of the intes-
tines, in the pure open air and sun
shine, so must the intestinal worm.
Before the tape-wOrm crawls by in
stinct out of the bowel by the natural
outlet, it divides its inconvenient
length into many parts.
Suppose there should be no lice,
fieas nor ticks on dog, hog, sheep, goat.
chicken, OK or horse? The vitality in
the eggs would perish, and the paras-
ties In our farm stock become extinct.
1t is believed that every parasitic insect
which eats one tape-worm egg loses its
life by the operation. If nothing else
intervenes to prevent, the hydAtid cysts
grow and destroy it. But when ticks
and lice bite lambs, they nibble at
them, crush some, and swallow others,
and 50 kill their tormentors. When
they take into the stomach the cysts
of an intestinal worm, they do sub
stantially what the horse does when he
swallows the eggs or Larvae of the bot
fly.
What sort of instinct of self-preser-
walton is that which prompts lice to
eat food that will destroy them in one
way or another? Here is a new vital
principle which, SO far as we have seen,
neither Darwin nor Huxley notices.
As nature is said to make no mistakes,
parasites on the bodies of hogs and
dogs must devow the cyst germs of
worms, producing, in the end, measly
meat, not for their own benefit, but to
perpetuate life in a very different class
of animals. Does Nature make one
class of sensitive beings move to GER
tain death to benefit another class, to
which life may be no sweeter? Ami
mails not merely subsist on one another,
but they go far out of their way to be
eaten when alive by parasites no better
than themselves. The law of immola-
ton descends all the way from man to
the louise and the worm.
How curious that birds and other an
finals take so much pairs to hide, watch
and defend their eggs, while the tape
worm goes far, and ends its being in an
effort to place its eggs where they will
be crushed between hard teeth, and
reach some animal tissue as the proper
indus for the growth of cysts and blad.
ders. These germs are as small as those
in q puff ball, or in the smut of a head
Of wheat. Hydatids never grow on
plants of any kind; and it was long a
mystery where tape.worms in lambs,
quite young dogs, and even babies,
came from.
In our management of domesticated
animals, we unwittingly propagate and
protect parasites to ourinjury. Justnow,
quick railway transpOrtationhas carried
Texas cattle with their cholera, what
ever that may be- to Connecticut,
where it is spreading. Travel in
Europe is still more concentrated and
augmented, leading to the aggravation
of many sources of disease in man and
beast. Measly meat is likely to in
crease, for agriculture is not yet 5 udied
and practiced as science by the mass
of farmers.