POTENT WORM-DESTROYERS. 343 



times within a week, he can do so safely if he allows 

 between each treatment an interval of a day. 



The influence of diet upon worms has been considered 

 with the subject of "Feeding," and it is merely necessary 

 here to emphasize the fact that worms are greatly favored 

 when the stomach and bowels are kept loaded with indi- 

 gestible or half-digested food, under which conditions the 

 parasites grow and increase in number far more rapidly 

 than under a happier one. Liquid foods are also, as a 

 rule, friendly to the pests, whereas solids tend to dislodge 

 and sweep them from the body. 



As to the prevention of worms, beyond the measures 

 already defined there are none of any special value. Sour 

 milk, very likely, has some action on the egg-shells of 

 worms, and it may be able to penetrate them and destroy 

 their contents ; or it may, possibly, soften these shells so 

 that the gastric juice can reach the young worms, which 

 it is thought invariably to kill. But, as far as puppies are 

 concerned, worms are almost always intrenched before 

 this food can properly be given them. 



The writer once thought powdered charcoal had some 

 preventive as well as destructive action, but long expe- 

 rience and close observation have since taught him that he 

 greatly over-estimated its effects in this direction, and that 

 if it has any such action it is but slight, and an appreciable 

 effect can only be obtained from very large doses ; to give 

 which to puppies is impossible except by force, for small 

 quantities, even, mixed with their food often cause them 

 to refuse it. Consequently he now discourages the use 

 of this agent as practically inert. 



Summarizing briefly, cleanliness is the most potent pre- 

 ventive of worms. In the absence of threatening signs 

 worm medicines should be withheld until after the eighth 

 week ; but in the event any such signs appear, dosing 



