308 



eral hundred purebred birds before the disease made its appear- 

 ance this spring, is not pleasant to contemplate. As it is, Mr. 

 Fisher is now on the way to the Coast to purchase five hundred 

 additional birds, sore-head notwithstanding. 



Kidney Worm in Hogs. 



AMiile in Hilo an opportunity to investigate the circumstances 

 surrounding the fatal outbreak of kidney worm, reported by Dr. 

 Elliot last month, offered itself. That this disease is not con- 

 fined to hogs kept on slaughter house offal and in highly un- 

 sanitary conditions, was fully proven. The parasite was, in fact, 

 encountered in hogs living under ideal conditions, that is, the wild 

 or half -wild hogs which roam by the thousand on the upper 

 slopes of Mauna Kea. Without exception, every hog killed on 

 the south side of the Puu Oo hill and the upper branch of the 

 Wailuku River appear to be more or less infected with the 

 worms, and the possibility of the infection reaching Hilo by 

 means of the river is not excluded. Live hogs cannot be trans- 

 ported from this remote vicinity to the lowlands except on pack 

 mules, which, of course, is not done ; but as the Wailuku River 

 has its origin on the Puu Oo divide, where the infected hogs 

 were seen in at least one of its branches in large numbers, and 

 where post-mortems were made and the worms found, the con- 

 clusion seems justified that the heavy infestation of the hogs at 

 the slaughter house near Hilo may have originated on the upper 

 reaches of Mauna Kea. 



The life history of this worm is not known. It infests the 

 abdominal viscera of hogs and is most frequently found in the 

 kidney fat, or in the kidney itself, and more rarely in the liver 

 and other organs. In one case at least, nearly half of one kidney 

 was found transformed into abscesses and cysts which, upon iso- 

 lation, showed numerous worms in various stages of development. 

 That some part of the worm's life cycle is spent outside the hogs, 

 is undisputed, and that some other host (possibly the earth worm) 

 assists in the development of the parasite, is highly probable, but 

 beyond these surmises nothing is known, not even the manner 

 in which the infection (eggs or larva) leave the original host. 



In the meantime it is futile to suggest measures for the con- 

 trol of the parasite beyond the boiling of all slaughter house offal, 

 while medicinal treatment is absolutely excluded, owing to the 

 habitat of the worms in organs and tissues inaccessible to ordi- 

 nary treatment. 



Forage Poisoning of Hogs on Maui. 



From the appended report of the Assistant Territorial Veteri- 

 narian, it will be seen that a number of hogs were lost on Maui 

 as a result of feeding badly moulded corn. This is one of the 



