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