272 DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS. 



Once established in a pack, uncinariosis may exercise its ravages 

 for years. Almost all animals, if not all, are successively affected. 



Pathological anatomy. At the autopsy of dogs which have 

 ])erished from pernicious anemia, or of those killed during an 

 advanced period of the disease, we find, besides the ordinary 

 alterations of cachexia, lesions related to uncinariosis. These are 

 ordinarily located in the small intestine and the caecum. The 

 mucous membrane is considerably thickened and marbled with 

 large red-colored spots ; the villi are increased five times in size, 

 and are injected with blood corpuscles which are arrested in the 

 bloodvessels and crowded and packed together. These alterations 

 of the mucous membrane are at first observed in the duodenum, 

 and spread themselves later to the jejunum and to the ileum. In 

 the parts which are relatively healthy we see on the mucous mem- 

 brane a large number of punctiform hemorrhages, little islets 

 formed by small drops of blood half coagulated, and in the 

 centre or side of which we find one or more filiform worms — 

 the uncinaria — 0.01 to 0.015 millimetre long, whitish or marked 

 with a black longitudinal line. The number is more or less con- 

 .siderable in proportion to the size of the healthy mucous mem- 

 brane. While the parasites are always very numerous in dogs 

 recently affected, we can hardly find any in the ileum of animals 

 which have been sick for a long time. They seem to leave suc- 

 cessively the parts of the intestinal mucous membrane in which 

 inflammation is developed under the action of their bites; thus is 

 explained the progressive extension of the lesions of the duodenum 

 and of the ileum.^ We find frequently the depressed trichocephalus 

 in the csecum ( T. depressiusculus, Rud.). This latter parasite pro- 

 ducing an intense inflammation of the csecal mucous membrane, it 

 was thought that it took an important part in the development of 

 the anemia in whole packs (Mégnin). The experiments of Railliet 

 have not confirmed this hypothesis.^ 



Diag-nosis. When uncinariosis exists for a long time in a pack 

 of hounds its diagnosis does not offer any difficulty, but when it 

 first makes its appearance, and if we are nut used to it, it may be 

 taken for essential anemia. This, however, is much more rare than 

 the former, and it affects simultaneously the greater number of 

 animals in the pack. In doubtful cases the diagnosis may be estab- 



1 Mégnin : Bull. Soc. cent. Vét., 1882. 



2 Railliet : Ibid., 1884. 



