356 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



thirteen inches long, but not above half an inch around 

 the middle; and on the 10th of December following, the 

 same horse, (Gr 31) now four years old, passed a worm of 

 the same kind, measuring twenty-seven inches in length, 

 having, in the course of the same week, voided 150, varying 

 from six to eighteen inches long, of the same family. The 

 worm is largest around its middle, from which it tapers off 

 regularly towards either extremitj^, becoming at both ends 

 pointed. In general, they are white ; sometimes they have 

 a red cast. It mostly happens that a single worm is passed, 

 which would incline us to believe they were solitary 

 within the bowels ; however this may be, we know, occa- 

 sionally, they have been found not only congregated, but in 

 vast numbers together. Chabert tells us he found fourteen 

 pounds (French) of them within a horse's small intestines ! 

 Their usual place of residence is the small guts ; though I 

 have discovered them coiled up together into a sort of ball 

 within the stomach — at the same time that bots were clinging 

 to its vascular part : rarely are any discovered within the 

 large intestines. Be where they may, they are enveloped in 

 mucus : seeming as if they preferred those situations in which 

 that secretion was most abundant. Hurtrel d^Arboval has 

 observed, that in the places where they are lodged in any 

 numbers, the mucous membrane is wrinkled and reddened ; 

 sometimes he has found it exulcerated, and covered with a 

 sort of fungus : all which he adduces as evidence of what he 

 endeavours to prove is of the nature of an accompanying 

 gastro-enteritis. In the spring of the year I have seen these 

 worms full of young ones, looking like tangles of white 

 or yellowish- white thread, within them. 



The AscARis Vermicularis. — ascarides, commonly so 

 called — is the small, needle-like, lively worm we occasionally 

 find in vast numbers within the large intestines ; and parti- 

 cularly within the blind pouch of the ceecum. Tlie worm 

 is commonly semi-transparent, or, when dead, opaque white — 

 though, I have found a black variety, from half to one inch 

 in length ; and is at one end obtuse, which is the head of the 

 worm ; at the other, sharp-pointed, which is its tail. It is 



