1 concluded that three tape-worms were there, consequently the
2 denomination of solitftri* is a wrong one. It was the broad
3 tape-worm. I kept the pieces in spirit; but it was no extra¬
4 ordinary novelty for these people, as the disease of the tape-worm
5 is verj common on the Lebanon. W hilst I was measuring the
6 tape-worm, the old patriarch Hanna stepped in, and asked me,
7 witn n smile, if i knew Bonaparte ? I answered that I knew
8 him by name only. He continued; people arriving just now
9 from Tripoli;, bring the news, that Bonaparte has died in the
10 English prison. Then that great genius lias come to an end,
11 said I, whoso memory will for ever he revered in France !
12 The inhabitants of the Lebanon are of opinion that the
13 frequent disease of tape-worm in their country is caused by
14 their eating raw Hesh, and afterwards drinking brandy im¬
15 moderately, which may indeed be considered as a secondary
16 cause. I ascribe the principal cause ol' the frequent appearance
17 of this disease on the Lebanon, to the fact, that the poor people
18 of that country, who are mostly affected with it, are living in
19 rooms where they are breeding silk-worms, also .sleeping in the
20 same apartments, and breathing the noxious air of the rotten
21 substances and putrefied mulberry leaves which serve as food to
22 these worms. I cherish this opinion so much the more, as the root
23 of the white mulberry-tree is considered, according to the Homieo-
24 pnthic principle, as a worm-destroying substance (ahthelminticum).
25 Those people have a particular method of curing the tape-worm
26 when it becomes annoying by unpleasant symptoms. Tiny
27 take, early in the morning, before breakfast, a small piece of
28 common soap, enveloped in the skin of a fig; afterwards,
29 thev roast n piece of fat meat on a fire of charcoal, in order to
30 coax the worm (as they believe) to come up from the intestines
31 to the stomach; they chew the roast meat, without swallow¬
32 ing the spittle or the juice. Believing the worm to he in the
33 stomach, which they think they feel afterwards, they drink
34 a good drought of vinegar, or even strong spirits, stopping
35 their nostrils, which is supposed to affect the Worm (perhaps also
36 the man) with intoxication, by means of which the worm is