Tape-worm in Beef

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 25, 1875

Tape-worm in Beef.

It has long been known that the eating of pork frequently gives rise to tape-worm in the human stomach, the successful treatment of which has been a difficult problem for the medical profession, or, at least, the most intelligent physicians, as many have been deceived in thinking that they had effected a cure when they have induced the expulsion of only a small portion of the worm. While the danger of contracting this disease has been very clearly associated with pork-eating, by medical men at least, it has been the general belief, and eminent physicians, even, have asserted, that beef was wholly free from the cysticerci which develop into tape-worms when taken into the human stomach. It appears from recent researches, however, that beef and veal are often found to be infested with measles. Indeed, Dr. T. Spencer Cobbold, F. R. S., F. L. S., professor of parasitic diseases at Middlesex Hospital Medical College, Eng., announces in the London Lancet for Dec. 5, 1874, that for some years he, in connection with other English physicians, has recognized beef to be the most frequent source of tape-worm both in England and several other countries. In an account which he gives of very extensive observations on this subject by himself and Dr. Limond, he states that in a young calf which they knew to be suffering from the presence of cysticerci in its flesh, they found many thousands of the embryonic parasites on examining its flesh after killing it. They observed also that they were most numerous in the superficial muscles.

The statements of these eminent observers are fully sustained by the observations of numerous others of equal eminence. Leuckart, Mosler, and M. Davaine being among the number.

Here, then, we have an additional argument against the use of beef, which has heretofore been considered as the most healthful of all animal food. It is also worth mentioning that these minute animals (as they are in an embryonic state in the flesh) possess a wonderful power to withstand heat, so that there is no certainty that a beefsteak may not contain them at any time.—Health Reformer.