﻿284 I'he Philippine Journal of Science im 



The lesions present in these animals go further to prove that 

 kidney-worm infestation becomes a generalized disease if allowed 

 to run its course. They also show how detrimental the disease 

 may be to a drove of breeding animals. It not only kills off the 

 older breeding animals, but may cause them to abort. In some 

 instances it has been noticed that sows die soon after giving birth 

 to a litter of young, causing the loss of the entire litter or stunt- 

 ing them to such an extent that they will never be as large animals 

 as those from a healthy mother. Also, there is a possibility that 

 the entire litter may become infected from the mother. 



MEDICAL TREATMENT 



Since the worms are embedded in the solid tissues and are 

 surrounded by purulent debris, treatment with vermicides in- 

 troduced by the mouth is absolutely unsatisfactory. Remedies 

 never could be expected to reach the worms in sufficiently con- 

 centrated form to have any beneficial action. Hence prevent- 

 ive measures are of more than usual importance. 



PREVENTION 



Various investigators have come to the conclusion that the 

 worm passes no part of its life cycle in any other animal than 

 the pig. Therefore, every effort must be made to break the 

 chains of succession in the reproduction of the worm by not 

 allowing uninfested animals to come in contact with infested 

 ones or with their excretions. 



Law ^ states that — 



Hogs should be excluded from all ground known to be infested, or on 

 which infested hogs have been, or which receive drainage from fields, lots 

 or pens occupied by other hogs; * * *. Above all the pigs should be 

 kept apart from slaughter houses and streams into which they drain and 

 on no account should they be allowed the offal or flesh of other pigs, 

 including scraps from the kitchen, unless the material has been thoroughly 

 cooked. * * * As in the case of other communicable diseases of pigs, 

 the massing of these animals in large herds in contaminated localities is 

 particularly dangerous. * * * Purchased pigs should only be added 

 to sound herds on the basis of irrefragible evidence of the soundness of the 

 herds and localities from which they come, and even then only after 

 quarantine. 



The only way the disease can be controlled to any extent is 

 by placing the pigs on slat floors, which allow the urine and 

 faeces to drain through. In this way, the uninfested animals 

 are not so apt to some in contact with infective material. 



'Veterinary Medicine, 2d ed. (1909), 5, 542. 



