362 PARASITES OF ANIMALS 



few of the carcases of the hundred and more equine animals that 

 perished in South Wales. Two totally distinct epizootics pre- 

 vailed. In the Beacons district tapeworms alone were the 

 cause of .death, whilst in the Deangunid district scores of animals 

 perished from strongyles. In another district a hundred 

 animals perished from tapeworms. These parasites I identified 

 as examples of Strongylus tetracanthus and Tania perfoliata. 

 Taking all the helminthological facts together we have made a 

 great advance both in hippopathology and equine epidemio- 

 logy; and, as I observed at the time, the scepticism which not 

 unnaturally still exists (in reference to entozoa as a frequent 

 cause of death amongst animals, both wild and domesticated) 

 will sooner or later be dispersed by that wider attention to the 

 subject which our labors have invoked. 



In relation to equine disease the facts brought forward 

 are too important to be dismissed in a single paragraph. 

 As two distinct kinds of parasitic epizooty were discovered, 

 the circumstances connected with their separate detection must 

 be noticed at greater length. Further on, I shall again deal 

 with the helminthiasis due to strongyles. It was on the 17th 

 of April, 1874, that I received from Mr Lloyd, of Dowlais, 

 Glamorganshire, a communication calling my attention to a 

 fatal epizootic affecting ponies. He supposed the outbreak to 

 be due to parasites. On the following day I also received a 

 parcel containing portions of the lower intestines, which had 

 been removed from one of the diseased animals. The victim in 

 question, a pony mare, had died on or about the 12th of April, 

 at Llangunider, Breconshire. Mr Lloyd states in his letter 

 that he " presumes " that the pony's death was caused " by the 

 presence of small worms," examples of which he now for- 

 warded for the purposes of identification and investigation. He 

 also sent some equine tapeworms. Mr Lloyd had already 

 inferred that his small worms were " strongyles ;" and in regard 

 to the tapeworms he says: " This species of parasite has caused, 

 or is supposed to have caused, the death of at least one hundred 

 mountain ponies." The investigation being immediately pro- 

 ceeded with, I may so far anticipate my record of the results 

 obtained as to state at once that the facts observed by me con- 

 firmed Mr Lloyd's suspicions proving, beyond a doubt, that 

 the pony above mentioned had succumbed to injuries inflicted 

 by myriads of minute strongyles. Not only did I find the 

 faecal matter of the colon loaded with mature strongyles, but 



