152 Veterinary Medicine. 



ACARIASIS OF THR LUNGS AND AIR SACS OP BIRDS. 



Cytodites Nudus. {Kytos a cavity, Nudus naked.) (Cyto- 

 leichus Sarcoptoides, Megiiin). The body is smooth, devoid, 

 or nearly so, of bristles, ovoid with its transverse diameter the 

 smaller. The rostrum is short, thick, conical, with rounded end 

 and hollowed out so as to form a sucking tube. The eight legs, 

 are moderately long and .each formed of five segments, the 

 terminal one ending in a sucker. The male is .45 mm. long, the 

 female .56 mm. Viviparous. The hexapod larva are rarely seen 

 as they speedily pass through their first moulting and appear 

 with eight legs. Their life outside the avian body is very little 

 known. They survive 5 or 6 days in the dead tissues or 8 days 

 in a normal salt solution. 



Habitat. The cytodites is found in the lungs, bronchia, air 

 sacs, and less frequently in the air cavities of the bones, and still 

 less so in the intestines of chickens, and other gallinacese. 



The breeding cocks suffered most in the cases of W. L. Wil- 

 liams, and the Asiatic more than other breeds. The disease 

 prevailed most in rainy months, in spring and autumn. 



Lesions. In the air sacs they may be detected with the naked 

 eye and still more readily with a magnifying lens in yellow 

 gelatinous masses and false membranes. In the bronchia they 

 are associated with a mucopurulent catarrhal product. Gerlach 

 and Zundel have each found them in the intestines in connection 

 with enteritis, Holzendorff found in the liver, kidneys and other 

 solid organs multiple yellow miliary nodules containing acari, 

 which were however probably the sympledoptes of the connective 

 tissue. 



Symptoms. When very numerous in the bronchia they cause 

 obstruction, cough, dyspncea and even asphyxia. Apart from 

 this, Megnin pronounces them harmless, and he denies the pos- 

 sibility of harm owing to the absence of mandibles, hooklets, 

 bristles and other possible sources of irritation. Gerlach and 

 Zundel, on the other hand, claim that they cause extensive 

 enteritis and peritonitis, while W. L. Williams claims to have 

 found serious disorder and anaemia in birds in which the only 

 observable cause was the great abundance of the cytodites. 

 Diarrhoea was the most constant symptom, with thin yellowish 



