PASCIOLA HBPATICA. 171 



accidentally or otherwise, to swallow the intermediate mollus- 

 can hosts in which the higher larvae of this parasite probably 

 dwell. The circumstance that the fluke has several times been 

 found in abscesses beneath the skin, seems to me to indicate that 

 the animal in its highest larval state possesses a special boring 

 apparatus, such, for example, as we find in the case of Gercaria 

 ornata. 



Injurious Effects on Animals. — It is well known that the liver- 

 fluke is extremely destructive, carrying off in England alone some 

 tens and even hundreds of thousands of sheep annually, besides 

 afflicting in a less degree our larger cattle. A writer in the Edin- 

 burgh " Veterinary Review," for 1861, says this " scourge of the 

 ovine race has occasionally reduced the number of sheep so much 

 as to materially enhance the price of healthy animals. For instance, 

 in the season of 1830-31, the estimated deaths of sheep from rot 

 was between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000. By supplying turnip, 

 oleaginous cakes, and grain, sheep partiaUy affected can be fattened ; 

 and those not affected can be kept sound by a limited daily allow- 

 ance of one or other of these foods." Supposing the number to 

 have been 1,500,000, this would represent a sum of something 

 hke £4,000,000 sterling ; consequently, as I have before remarked, 

 the disease cannot fail to prove higlily prejudicial to our social 

 interests. Every year a large number of sheep perish, but the 

 endemic is much more strongly pronounced in some years than in 

 others. The disease thus produced is variously named in different 

 countries, and also in different parts of the same country. 

 Thus in England it is now most commonly called, simply, the 

 rot; but in Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Cornwall, it is called 

 the coathe; whilst in Somersetshire and the western part of 

 England generally, it is known as the bane (Simonds). The 

 terms luater-rot and fl.ulce-rot are of course synonymous. In 

 France the disease is vulgarly termed ■pourriture, but the name 

 generally employed, in books, is cachexie aqueuse. In Germany the 

 disorder is called Egelseuche, which, literally rendered, means the 



