304 



ARACHNOIDEA. 



CASE manure heaps of all great towns. The most of them are either 

 killed or die in the cellars of houses where they have taken refuge. 



In the country the complaint is much rarer, the opportunity of 

 contagion being so much less ; but when it appears there it runs 

 its course as rapidly as in towns. M. Delwart, of Brussels, said, 

 in 1830, that he had seen in large farms, where a great many cats 

 were kept, the malady spread itself with such rapidity that in four 

 or five weeks all the cats had been carried off by the affection ; 

 and in 1827 M. Sajous, a veterinary surgeon residing at Tarbes, 

 related that a very intense epizootic itch had raged in that district 

 among the cats for several years, and it proved so murderous that 

 entire villages remained wholly deprived of cats. The malady 

 seems to vary in virulence at different times, and when very bad 

 it is called epizootic, when milder, sporadic : differences which 

 may be due to the character of the season or general robustness 

 of the animals' health at different times. 



The symptoms are the same in the rabbit when it is infected. 



The same remedies that are used for the itch in man should be 

 used for this variety, and of course modified in their administra- 

 tion to suit the different characters of the patient. 



In the country the cats may occasionally in autumn be seen 

 suffering from great imtation, and people are apt to jump to the 

 conclusion that they have got the itch. But it is always easy to 

 tell whether it is so or not, for if the itch it shows itself about the 

 head, nose, and ears, and if instead of that the irritation is about 

 the feet, ten to one it is caused by the harvest mite, Leptus 

 autumnalis, which the cat has caught in wandering about the 

 garden, and usually on examination the matter can be put beyond 

 doubt by finding the little red mite in the fur, or between the 

 claws of the cat. If kept from getting a fresh supply it will 

 soon get better, for the mites will by and bye leave it of their 

 own accord : but if it is allowed to get a fresh supply every 

 day, it will of course get worse and worse as long as the supply 

 is renewed. 



