[I'roc. Roy. Soc. Victoria 28 (N.S.). Part I., 1916.1 



Art. I. — Investigations into the Qccurrfince of Onchocerciasis 

 in Cattle (ind Associated Animals in Countries other 

 than Australia. 



I'.v GEORGINA SWEET, D.Sc. 



(With Plates I.-V.). 



[Read 11th March, 1915]. 



During the tour upon the occasion of which these investigations 



were made, I was aide to visit Java, the Straits Settlements, and 

 Malay Federated States. Ceylon, India, Egypt, Europe, Great. 

 Britain. United States of America, Canada and the Hawaiian 

 Islands. In addition, enquiries have been made from responsible 

 officials regarding the other islands of Netherlands India, Burma, 

 Siam. Annam, Southern China, and the Philippines, but very little 

 information has been available in the latter cases. I wish to 

 thank very sincerely those officials in so many places who have 

 given me any assistance in their power, in many instances taking 

 considerable trouble to do the necessary work. 



In only two or three cases had we any previous knowledge of 

 these "worm-nodules"; thus, one instance had been recorded 

 (under the name of Spiroptera reticulata) of their occurrence 

 near the shoulder of an Indian bullock in Malay (Daniels. 1 '. M > 4 > 

 (Gilruth and Sweet, 1912), while they had been found in cattle in 

 Java by J. De Does (1904), and others (Railliet et Henry. 1910) 

 As may be seen in detail in previous papers on onchocerciasis in 

 Australian cattle, there is considerable historical evidence pointing 

 to the importation of the parasitic worm causing these muscle- 

 embedded nodules into Australia from Southern or South-Eastern 

 Asia. It may have been brought in either in 1826-8 in buffaloes 

 from Timor (Cleland and Johnston, 1910 (d) ), or in 1824 or 18-10 

 in cattle from Coepang in Timor (Gilruth and Sweet. 1911, p. 34), 

 this latter seeming the more probable, inasmuch as the buffaloes- 

 found in considerable numbers in the Northern Territory, which 

 are the descendants of buffalo imported in 1824 and 1826 from 

 Timor and 1886 from India, are not known to harbour this para- 

 site, although careful search was made for it. and for evidence 



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