Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-10-30

gastric juice of the stomach soon ruptures
the minute capsule and liberates the micro
scopic embryo. which consists of minute
vesicle provided with delicate silicious
spines, fitted for boring into the tissues of
its host. Armed with these little blades, it
perforates the walls of the stomach and
takes up its abode usually in the muscles
or perhaps more properly speaking, and as
Huxley affirms the connective tissues of
the muscles.
At this stage of its existence a very sin
gular process takes place. An Unfolding,
something after the manner of pushing in
finger of glove when we wish to turn it,
termed imagination. The little booklets
are now developed at the bottom of the
sac on the inside. After this process has
gone on for time, evagination, or turning
inside out, takes place, which brings the
booklets and the disks. which have also in
the meantime been formed, to the outside.
Thus the head has been formed, and, when
it has been Withdrawn, there remains be-
| low the sac. We now have what is termed
| the cystic or bladder-worm, and which was
| formerly considered not only specifically
| distinct from the tape-worm, but as belong
| ing to distinct group of animals. So I'M
| like are the two forms that even in Cuvier s
great work, 1.-The Animal Kingdom" we
| find it placed in separate genus in the
broad sense these groups were then under
stood. In this form it is known by the
common name of " measles"
Such is the strange origin of this disease
in the hog, fact brought TO light only in
recent years by long. patient, scientific
study of these humble forms of life-a fact
which the ordinary observations and expe-
rience of a thousand years has not led any
| one even Ia SusDect
But we are not yet through our descrip-
ton of this wonderful life history.
Having reached this stage of its exist
ence, our tenid seems incapable of further
development, as it undergoes no farther
change in the position it now occupies, and
has no power or apparent disposition to ex-
tricate itself therefrom. Moreover it is,
while in this position, without sexual dis
| tinction, and incapable of reproduction.
| For the purpose of further development, it
| is necessary that it now pass into the ali
mentary canal of man. If it now be taken
into the human stomach without its life
being extinguished by cooking or other
wise, a change soon takes place. The
scolex" or head fastens itself by its
| booklets and sucking bladder, and imme-
diately the formation of joints commences.
This brings us back to the point from
| which we started, and completes its circle
of changes. 1t follows, therefore. that the
measles in the hog and the tape-werm in
man-at least the species known as the
| solitary worm-are different forms of one
and the same animal. 1t also follows that
man and the hog are bound together by a
| living link, that, so far as known, must
cease TO exist without participating in the
| life of both. l say so far as known, for a
statement made by the immortal Cuvier
leads US to believe that it is probable that
its second or tape-worm form may be de-
veloped in some other mammal than man
He remarks. in reference to the cystus or
! bladder-worm, which, as we have seen, is
the larYal stage found in the hog, that il
is said, however, that they have never been
found in the wild boar" If it be true that
the larval stage can be developed only in
swine, and the perfect or sexual stage only
in man, to account for its existence before
| the hog was domesticated would present q
very singular question, both for Darwinians
and anti-Darwinians. But it suggests one
practical means of lessening the liability on
the hog side at least, of being subject to
its attack. 1t is to keep them, as far as
possible, from having access TO human ex-
crementitious matter. The facts stated in
dictate clearly the following as the only
remedies: First, to destroy the larval form
by the application of heat; second, to keep
| hogs from access to human excrementi-
| tious matter, thus breaking the links al
| two points.