108 TURKEY CULTURE. 



PREVALENCE OF TAPEWORMS IN TURKEY& 



PROF. SAMUEL CUSHMAN. 



Our work with the disease known as "blackhead" ena- 

 bled us to examine the intestines of each bird the entire 

 length for tapeworms, and we found that they were more 

 generally infested than we had even suspected. Turkeys 

 affected with blackhead were free from tapeworms, but of 

 the sixty-five examined that showed no traces of that dis- 

 ease, the intestines of forty contained tapeworms. Worms 

 from a quarter of an inch to several inches in length were 

 found, and occasionally those a foot or more long. Some 

 birds contained only great numbers of very minute worms 

 in the upper intestine, others only large fully developed 

 worms in the lower intestine, while in still others small 

 ones were found in the upper, and numbers of long and 

 large ones in the lower intestine. In one or two instances 

 these worms were found only in the blind prolongation of 

 the lower intestine. One bird found in a dying condition 

 in a flock from which turkeys had been dying for over a 

 month, and from which thirty had been lost within a 

 week, was found to contain a very large number of tape- 

 worms of medium size, and no other cause for sickness 

 could be discovered. Frequently the lower part of the in- 

 testine was fairly crowded with great numb ers of long 

 worms. One little turkey three or four weeks old had 

 many small worms in the duodenum, and the remainder 

 of the intestines was almost completely filled with those 

 that were several inches long, about fifty in number. A 

 microscopical examination of apparently mature segments 

 by Dr. Smith, showed that ripe embryos were present. 

 As these sick turkeys come from many different farms 

 in various parts of the State, and but one or two 

 birds were secured from any one place, it seems that 

 this trouble is very prevalent among young turkeys 

 during the summer months in Rhode Island, and this 



