THE NODULAR DISEASE OF THE INTESTINES. 



(ESOPHAGOSTOMA COLUMBIANUM, Curtice. 

 Plates XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII. 



In the Eastern States there exists a hitherto undescribed disease, 

 which is characterized by tumors present in the upper part of the large 

 intestine. The disease causes heavy losses, for it seriously affects the 

 health of the sheep, and renders the intestine valueless for making- 

 sausage casings. Though the latter result would seem trivial at first 

 sight, it is by no means unimportant, for sausage-makers are compelled 

 to import the greater part of covering material used in their business. 

 The disturbancesof health i)roduced are very serious, for there are places 

 in the South where sheep can not be kept with profit, apparently on ac- 

 count of this parasite alone. Dr. D. E. Salmon, Chief of the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, who atone time lived in the South, performed many 

 yostmortem examinations on diseased sheep, and found nothing but these 

 intestinal tumors to account for the severe symptoms of disease which 

 they exhibited, and has verbally stated that he believes this malady is 

 the chief obstacle to successful sheep husbandry in some portions of the 

 Southern States. 



Investigation. — The cause of the disease remained until the winter of 

 1888-'89 in obscurity, but owing to a favorable combination of material 

 and methods of investigation it was then ascertained. Some of the 

 larger soft tumors, which are characteristic of this disease, were dis- 

 sected from the intestine, and after being slit open their greenish, 

 cheesy contents escaped in a watch-glass of water. By carefully teas- 

 ing the apparently newer portion of these masses a little worm, the 

 cause of the trouble, was found. Previous to that time Dr. Theobald 

 Smith, of this Bureau, had in the winter of 1880-'S7 made and examined 

 miw'oscopic sections of these tumors. One of a series of sections (see 

 Pliite XXV, Fig. 8) showed what was apparently the fragment of a 

 worm. Numerous other sections made at the same time showed no 

 signs of this parasite, and the investigations were temporarily aban- 

 doned. 



Although tuberculosis is an uncommon disease in sheep, and although 

 the tumors found in this disease differ in many essential points in both 

 their history of formation and in tlieir histological detail from those 

 caused by tubercle bacilli, there Avas a superficial resemblance, on 



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