Parasites of the Liver. 357 



In the more advanced stage, seen in sheep that have died after 

 a lingering illness, the anaemia is extreme ; the blood is pale, 

 thin and watery ; the subcutaneous and intermuscular fat has dis- 

 appeared or is represented largely by a watery liquid ; the muscles 

 are everywhere pale, colorless, flabby and shrunken so that the 

 bones project strongly ; there is no cadaveric rigidity ; the connec- 

 tive tissue generally is dropsical, but especially that of the de- 

 pendent parts (under the jaws, sternum or abdomen). The liver 

 is shrunken, firm, fibroid (even grating under the knife), with 

 rounded edges. It shows light-colored and haemorrhagic spots ; 

 and on its posterior surface, branching from the porta, the di- 

 lated gall ducts with enormously thickened walls and biliary 

 encrustations. These ducts stand out like thick, yellowish white 

 cords. When cut into they are found to be encrusted and dis- 

 tended by casts of biliary salts and coloring matter, and enclose a 

 thick, dark, grumous bile, containing flukes, (50 to 1006) and 

 myriads of their ova. The contents may be at points a stiff dark- 

 brown mass, like fine wet sand, made up almost exclusively of 

 the ova (Thomas). In other cases the mottled disorganized liver 

 and the distended and encrusted ducts, may show no flukes nor 

 ova, the parasites having reached the limit of their life in the 

 mammalian host and passed out, leaving only the lesions result- 

 ing from their invasion. In still other instances, the apparently 

 fluke-free bile has a light color and consistency, but is in con- 

 stant motion from the movements of myriads of young flukes. 

 These may be made visible under a pocket lens, or if lifted on 

 the point of the scalpel, each is seen to form a small, transparent 

 jelly-like mass. 



The bile in the gall bladder is also thick, deep green or violet, 

 and mixed with mature or young flukes or ova. 



Wandering flukes may be found outside the biliary passages. 

 Thus they have been seen in the substance of the lung or liver, 

 or in a thrombus in the portal vein or in one of its hepatic 

 branches. In some instances the victims die early of accidental 

 complications, such as pulmonary congestion, to which a sudden 

 frost, a cold or wet storm, and the thin watery condition of the 

 blood specially predisposed them. In such cases the consolidated 

 dark-red or black lung which sinks in water, and the presence of 

 flukes in the gall ducts are characteristic, even if the case is too 



