INTESTINAL PARASITES. 329 



than santonin, and at the same time it is non-irritating and 

 perfectly safe when given in the quantities herein advised. 

 Beyond this, it really possesses tonic properties that are 

 felt especially by the lining membrane of the intestine, 

 which fact has been shown in many cases by improvement 

 in the diarrhoea and other symptoms attributed to worms 

 when those symptoms were due, not to worms, but to other 

 causes, and very generally to indigestion. Finally, the 

 writer doubts if it is poisonous even in very large doses, 

 for he has many times given, without injury, four tea- 

 spoonfuls of No. I, and repeated the doses in one hour, to 

 pug puppies that were in their third week; while to the 

 same puppies he gave one drachm doses of pure wormseed 

 oil when they were in their seventh week, and the only 

 marked effect produced was constipation. But these ex- 

 periments were for the purpose of locating the safety 

 lines, and of course no reader would be justified in re- 

 peating them. Nor would it be necessary, for the small 

 doses advised act quite as well on the worms. 



As already intimated, when severe symptoms of worms 

 appear in a puppy about the third week the chances are 

 many that death will result, and more than likely be due 

 to perforation of the intestinal walls, failure of the vital 

 powers induced by intestinal inflammation, obstruction of 

 nutrition or diarrhoea; or it may be occasioned by pro- 

 found impression of the worms upon the head centre of 

 the nervous system, the same being exhibited by convul- 

 sions. 



While both the worm medicines advised are practically 

 harmless they sometimes cause symptoms with which the 

 reader should be familiar, for otherwise he might be made 

 uneasy by them. Slight frothing at the mouth, evidently 

 a disposition to spit, and shaking the head for a few min- 

 utes, are induced by the unpleasant taste of the drugs. 



