Intestinal coccidiosis of calves and lambs. 271 



(for a lamb) up to 100 grains (for a two-year-old sheep) of thymol in 

 1 per cent, coal-tar creosote solution. 



INTESTINAL COCCIDIOSIS OF CALVES AND LAMBS (PSORO- 

 SPERMOSIS, H/EMORRHAGIC ENTERITIS, BLOODY FLUX, 

 DYSENTERY, ETC.). 



History. This disease is very common in the Avalon and surrounding 

 districts, sometimes assumes the characteristics of a true epizootic, and 

 affects young bovine animals between the ages of six months and two 

 years, but is commonest and most contagious in animals of from ten to 

 eighteen months old. 



It attacks animals in good or bad condition, without distinction of 

 breed or species. It begins towards the end of July, attains its maximum 

 development towards the end of August and September, and dis- 

 appears in October, though occasionally it continues until November. 

 In exceptional cases Degoix has seen it during January and February in 

 animals which had returned from the fields to the byres about the end 

 of November. It develops earlier than verminous bronchitis, in con- 

 junction with which, however, it often occurs. It is commonest in warm, 

 moist, rainy years, and amongst animals pastured on swampy ground 

 containing numerous springs and streams. Year after year it attacks 

 animals occupying particular pastures in summer. The soil of these 

 pastures is undoubtedly infested with the germs of the disease, just as 

 in places the soil is infested with anthrax bacilli. The appearance of 

 symptoms is preceded by an incubation period of one or two months. 

 The length of this incubation period is fixed by the observations which 

 Degoix has made during the past twenty years, and depends on the time 

 which elapses between the animals being turned into infected pastures 

 and the appearance of the preliminary symptoms. 



Symptoms. The disease commences with liquid, serous, fcetid, 

 greenish-black diarrhcea, the material being voided without special strain- 

 ing and the animals losing neither their spirits nor appetite. Fever can 

 scarcely be detected, the temperature ranging between 38° and 39° C. 

 On the second or third day the diarrhoea changes in character. Though 

 it always remains fcetid, it now becomes mucous, reddish-black, or 

 sanguinolent, and contains more or less frequent blood clots of varying 

 size. 



The passage of this material causes violent straining, which becomes 

 more and more common, and is accompanied by very pronounced rectal 

 tenesmus. The animals stand with their backs arched for one or two 

 minutes, sometimes longer, and the liquid escapes in large quantities, 

 soiling the quarters and hocks. The animals are dull, show a certain 



