12 ACTION OF ANTHELMINTICS ON PARASITES. 



to act upon parasites during their invasion of the body and not upon 

 those which have already become established in the host. 



Floris (1907, 1908) has used carbon bisulphid, a remedy which 

 Perroncito and Bosso (1894) and Wessel (1901) had reported as 

 efficacious against GastropMlus in the horse, and which Taar (1907) 

 had found efficacious against GastropMlus and Ascaris in the horse. 

 Floris administered the carbon bisulphid in gelatin capsules in doses 

 of 10 to 15 grams three or four times a week. The treatment was not 

 attended by unpleasant effects and served to free the animals of 

 flukes, the feces containing 5 to 10 flukes at a time. Floris notes that 

 this is a very inexpensive remedy. 



Alessandrini (1908) reports that he had administered extract of 

 male fern to two sheep which were severely infested. The sheep were 

 dead two days later. Autopsy showed the flukes in the intestine and 

 liver to be dead and degenerated. 



Pericaud (1908) has a rather glowing account of the virtues of a 

 so-called " distomasine," said to consist of a glucosid and some plant 

 essence. He gives no experimental tests, and the paper apparently 

 adds nothing to our knowledge. 



Borini (1911) states that in 1905, at the suggestion of Perroncito, 

 ethereal extract of male fern was used to arrest a plague of bovine 

 distomatiasis occurring on the estate of a rich proprietor in Calabria. 

 Experiments have been made on laboratory animals from that year 

 on, the treatment being especially tested on sheep. These experi- 

 ments, according to Borini, confirm the therapeutic value of male 

 fern against distomatiasis. In light infections cures were always 

 obtained; in the worst cases of advanced cachexia the treatment 

 failed. The use of thymol in connection with male fern is recom- 

 mended. 



Railliet, Moussu, and Henry (1911) have recently published a 

 series of articles on the treatment of distomatiasis. In their first 

 papers (1911a and 1911b) they note the desirability of some medica- 

 tion in view of the considerable losses suffered in France in 1910. 

 They first experimented with medicines* which may be eliminated 

 by the liver, especially aloes, calomel, sodium salicylate, and "boldo." 

 Most of the animals treated with these remedies improved, but there 

 was no cure, no destruction of the parasites. Autopsy showed the 

 flukes to be still alive after treatment extending over 15 days to 

 three weeks. It seemed as though the treatment reduced the activity 

 of the flukes without really having a specific effect on them. 



In another series of experiments they used compounds of phos- 

 phorus, arsenic, and mercury, as phosphorated oil, arsenic, atoxyl, 

 arseno-benzol, trypanblau. benzoate of mercury, and fluid extract of 

 broom. Xone of them gave certain, positive results. 



