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CHAPTER IX. 



INTERNAL PARASITES. 



THE importance of the study of helminthology (the science which discourses of internal 

 parasites or worms) to the veterinary practitioner can scarcely be over-estimated. To the dog- 

 fancier, the kennelman, and, indeed, to every one who possesses an animal of the canine 

 species, the subject we have now to treat of is one of very great moment indeed. The amount 

 of injury done annually, not only to our sporting dogs but to dogs of all breeds, and the amount 

 of disease and death caused by internal parasites, is almost incalculable. Yet much of this 

 mischief is preventible, and it is the duty of dog-fanciers and owners to do all they can to 

 stay the evil. 



Nor is it our dogs alone that suffer. That were bad enough, but many thousands of our 

 precious sheep fall victims every year to diseases directly engendered from contact with the 

 larvae of the internal parasites of dogs. V> e wish we could say that the evil ended here, 

 but we must go a step further, and state that hundreds of human beings die annually of that 

 painful racking illness occasioned by hydatid tumours of the liver caused indirectly by our 

 friend the dog. 



There may be some of our readers to whom the subject of internal parasites may possess 

 much interest, these we refer to the works of Dr. Cobbold, a gentleman whom we have to 

 thank for many an hour's pleasant and profitable reading. 



Says Leuchart, referring to the amount of irritation, congestion, and even inflammation, 

 which parasites gives rise to in the human frame, " The most striking example of the truth 

 of these statements is afforded by the trichina; which, on their passage into the intestinal canal, 

 induce a malignant enteritis, with the production of false membranes, and lead to appearances 

 which have a great resemblance to typhus." 



In a case of trichinosis, Leuchart has seen as many as 300,000 of these spiral worms in 

 half an ounce of the flesh of a corpse ! 



This terrible disease is produced from eating the under-done flesh of such animals as 

 swine that happen to give a lodgment to the trichinae. But it is with the parasites of the 

 dog we have more especially to do at present. 



" Of the encysted parasites," says Leuchart, " the dog above all other animals supplies us 

 with germs. It is the dog that favours the spread of Pentastomum dcnticulatum, Cysticercus 

 tenuicollis, and echinicoccus, from the development within the nasal sinuses, of Pentastomum 

 taenioides, and in its (the dog's) intestine of Tcenia marginata and Tcenia echinicoccus." 



" But," adds Leuchart, " even the muscle trichinae of men may in some cases be communicated 

 from the dog to man." 



Most canine surgeons make three different classes of worms found in the dog, namely, 

 the round-worm, the tape-worm, and the ma\v-\vonn. 



Now, these " maw-worms," which we are all so well accustomed to see crawling over the 

 stools of dogs, are not a distinct species. They are nothing more or less than the "semi-inde 



