INTESTINAL WORMS. 355 



an oscillatory motion of the tail, even when no colic is 

 present; and, owing to the continual itching about the anus, 

 a disposition to rub the root of the tail or the rump against 

 anything within reach; the appearance of exsiccated matter, 

 in the form of a white or else a yellow powder, about the 

 fundament ; the horse licking the white-washed wall, and 

 nibbling the manger, and even parts of his own body as 

 well ; eating any earth or clay or chalk he can get at, and 

 being, as it is said, fond of salt in particular ; raising his 

 upper lip and rubbing it against the wall ; his coat being 

 dry and rough, and remaining on in patches long after it 

 ought to have been shed ; his skin tight and bound ; lean in 

 condition, and unable to be got to thrive : added to which, 

 there is a feverishness about him ; his pulse is small and 

 accelerated ; his mouth unusually dry and warm ; and his 

 appetite fastidious, as well as vitious. After all this detail, 

 however, as I said before, I should advise that practitioner 

 who sets a value on the correctness of his judgment, to give 

 but a dubious opinion until such time as a worm, or some 

 fragment or evidence of one, shall appear in the faeces. 



Kinds. — Of the genus of worm called ascaris there are 

 many species. Rudolphi reckons seventy-eight : of them, 

 two inhabit the intestines of horses ; viz. the ascaris lumbri- 

 coides, and the ascaris vermicularis. There has been also 

 found, on rare occasions, the strongulus, and the tcenia ; and 

 some^ say, the fas ciola. 



The Ascaris Lumbricoides, or lumbricus teres, is the 

 long round worm we most frequently discover in the dung 

 of horses living in stables. In form it much resembles the 

 common earth-worm, being cylindrical, about as large round 

 as a woman^s little finger, and in length varying from three 

 to four inches to a foot. Two years ago I had one brought 

 me that measured thirteen inches in length and one incli 

 around its middle : another, the same year, that measured 

 ten inches in length. Gibson says he has seen them '* about 

 eighteen inches long/^ and " larger than a man^s finger.^' 



August 24th, 1843, G 31, while at the forge, voided one 

 ' Chabert and Girard both testify to having seen fasciolae in horses. 



