DANGERS TO LIFE.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 884, 7 November 1871, Page 3

DANGERS TO LIFE.

It is stated that in Great Britain from 200 to 300 persons die annually from swallowing the eggs of a small tape worm, called taenia echinococcus, and that in Ireland no less than one-sixth of the population shuffle off the mortal coil from this cause. As an experiment, he procured some hydatids from a Clarß Market sheep, and gave them to a dog for two days running in his food. In forty-six days the dog was killed, and Dr. Cobbold found that there were 8,800 taenia inside it. As each of the final segments of the taenia contained on an average 5,000 eggs, there must have been upwards of 40,000,000 in that one dog. This is Dr Cobbold's particular argument against irrigation sewage—that it helps to propagate these destructive little pest; although Mr Hope indignantly denies that, after the rough treatment it has received in the sewers, a single tsenia could be left alive. At all events considering that most of the tsenia come into the human system through our beef and mutton, the question is decidedly worth considering ; and with all the appliances, chemical and scientific, that we have at hand, the solution of the difficulty cannot be very far off.