256 Veterinary Medicine. 



This has been found by Ostertag in the abomasum in 90 per 

 cent, of the cattle slaughtered in the Berlin abattoirs. It was not 

 found in prime animals, but only in those in poor condition. 

 Stiles has found it in American cattle and sheep. Though some- 

 times found free in the contents of the stomach, it is usually en- 

 cysted in the mucosa so as to form minute nodules, each having a 

 small opening through which the worm passes. Many of the 

 nodules are extremely superficial, so that they are readily rup- 

 tured under the pressure of the finger or of a knife blade and the 

 tiny worms escaping, float on the surface. Often a portion of the 

 parasite only projects, the remainder being still embedded in the 

 nodule. 



In an investigation made m Victoria, DeWitt and Gonzales 

 counties, Texas, Dr. Ch. Wardwell Stiles found these parasites 

 in every bovine animal, old or young, examined post-mortem, 

 and in many cases microscopic sections of the mucosa " reminded 

 one of a very heavy infection of muscular trichinosis in man, 

 hogs or rats." The walls of the stomach were oedematous and 

 greatly thickened, often from " half an inch to an inch and a 

 half in thickness and appear like a mass of rubber that has been 

 in zylene for a long time." The common experience was that 

 it was not possible to put flesh on the affected animals by any 

 kind of feeding, and the sufferers showed the general anaemic and 

 dropsical appearance of animals suffering ftom blood-sucking 

 nematode worms. 



As is usual in verminous invasions the Strongylus Ostertagi 

 was not found alone, but usually associated with other parasites, 

 the propagation of which is favored by the same conditions of 

 damp or wet soil, a warm climate, close aggregation of a large 

 number of animals, and the use of common feeding and watering 

 troughs and pastures. Of other varieties of worms present in 

 the.se Texas cases the following were especially common : 

 Strongylus Micrurus, Strongylus Contortus, Uncinaria Radiata, 

 Uncinaria Cernua, CEsophagostoma Columbiana, Distoma Hepati- 

 cum and Distoma Lanceolatum. Yet such was the degree of 

 injury done to the muco.sa of the abomasum by the S. Ostertagi 

 that Stiles is constrained to say : " Although the worm is small 

 I cannot escape the conclusion that it was the chief factor in the 

 disease found among the cattle." 



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