According to modern writers the famous Viennese
collection of helminths contains chains of tenia saginata 24 feet
long. The older reports, according to which the taenia solium
(i.e., generally the taenia saginata) grew to such lengths as 40,
50, 60, and even as much as 800 yards, are generally regarded as
erroneous. The observers have apparently taken the total of all
the fragments of the worm or worms evacuated at any time and
added them, thus obtaining results so colossal that it would be
impossible for such an immense mass to be contained in any human
intestine.
The name solium has no relation to the Latin solus, or solium. It
is quite possible for a number of tapeworms to exist
simultaneously in the human body. Palm mentions the fact of four
tapeworms existing in one person; and Mongeal has made
observations of a number of cases in which several teniae existed
simultaneously in the stomach. David speaks of the expulsion of
five teniae by the ingestion of a quantity of sweet wine. Cobbold
reports the case of four simultaneous tapeworms; and Aguiel
describes the case of a man of twenty-four who expelled a mass
weighing a kilogram, 34.5 meters long, consisting of several
different worms.
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