Doktor Kuckenmeister’s Gruesome Experiment
Herr Doktor Friedrich Kuckenmeister conducted a pioneering medical experiment on a prisoner awaiting execution. He persuaded the prison authorities to allow him to feed the unfortunate man a soup made from meat laced with cysts. Six weeks later the man was hanged, and when he was cut down, Kuckenmeister performed an autopsy. He found the man’s digestive tract riddled with tapeworms, confirming his suspicions that cysts in animal carcases formed part of the lifecycle of these parasites. Had the condemned man been allowed to live, the tapeworms would have grown and grown, feeding on his digested food, and might have reached a length of 30 m (100 ft).
Source: The Totally Useless History of the World by Ian Crofton pg. 229.
Andrew Milroy 