STRONGYLIX.E 295 



good condition being equally susceptible with others. A typical symp- 

 tom of the affection is a peculiar stretching of the neck accompanied 

 by a yawn-like opening of the beak from which movement the disease 

 derives its name "gapes." The birds repeatedly shake their heads, 

 sneeze, and expel tenacious masses of mucus which may contain one 

 or more pairs of the worms. The appetite, at first voracious, diminishes, 

 and the birds become dull and inactive with feathers erect and lusterless. 



Emaciation progresses, the mouth is filled with frothy saliva, respira- 

 tion becomes increasingly difficult, and the animal dies from exhaustion, 

 or it raaj' be from asphyxia before such advanced symptoms are reached. 

 Recovery is rare in young l)irds. Older ones sometimes survive if the 

 infestation is light. 



Treatment. — A method of treatment commonh' practiced is to strip 

 a feather of its barbules to within a short distance of its tip and inserting 

 this into the trachea with a rotary movement, attempt to detach and 

 elevate the worms. Only such worms as are not firmly fixed to the 

 mucosa are removed by this process and, in view of the danger of its 

 causing suffocation, it is a questiona])le procedure unless as an urgent 

 palliative measure. 



A better treatment is to give with the food certain substances of strong 

 odor eliminated in the respiratory passages and having a deleterious 

 effect upon the parasites. As such agents garlic and asafetida have 

 been employed with success. According to Neumann, Megnin has had 

 good results with a mixture of equal parts of asafetida and powdered 

 gentian root incorporated in a cake and given in the proportion of eight 

 grains per bird each day. 



Another method reconnnended is the injection into the trachea of 

 about fifteen drops of a five to eight per cent, solution of salicylic acid. 

 The injection should be made slowly with a small syringe and canula. 



Fumigations with such agents as sulphurous acid or tobacco smoke, 

 resorted to by some, involve such risk of accident from suffocation as 

 to make their use unadvisable. 



As prevention, affected birds and those apparently health}- should 

 be removed to clean and separate quarters and the infested yards 

 cleaned and sprinkled with a one to one thousand solution of sulphuric 

 acid. The bodies of dead birds are to be buried deeph' or burned. 

 Food and water should be fresh, given from clean utensils, and not per- 

 mitted to stand about. As an aid in prevention the addition of fifteen 

 grains of salicylate of soda to the quart of drinking water has been 

 recommended. 



The Kidney \\'orm of the Hog 



Stephanurus dentatus. StrongyHdse (p. 255). — This worm is at 

 present of somewhat uncertain position in the classification of the 



