A TREATISE ON ELEPHANTS. 
necessarily subject to the same influences as the trained ones. I 
would particularly mention that those elephants of this department 
which were during the hot weather kept in the cattle lines, partially 
in sheds and well cared for, have up to this time escaped. 
The sufferers have been those sent from the scarcity of forage 
to the jungles to graze. ?H * * * " 
With reference to this outbreak the symptoms appear to have 
developed suddenly, and the disease to have run a very rapid 
course. It is possible that the deaths were really due to some 
specific disease. It will be observed that the elephants that were 
kept in the lines escaped, while those only that were sent out to 
graze contracted the malady. There is no doubt that flukes and 
amphistomes were present in these cases. 
The natural history of the Fasciola or Distoma hepaticiim of 
the sheep has been carefully worked out, and to those interested in 
the life history of this parasite I would recommend a small book by 
J. B. Simonds on " The Rot in Sheep. ^' It will be sufficient to state 
here that the progressive changes and transformation through which 
this parasite passes from the egg to the mature fluke take place 
outside the body of the creature they ultimately inhabit. They 
enter the body in their penultimate form and are parasitic only in 
their mature state. They do not multiply in the body. It is a well 
established fact that the fluke disease or rot is essentially a disease 
of low-lying, inundated tracts, and wet seasons. There is little 
doubt that some of the cases called thut by the . Burmans and 
zahirbad by the Indians are true rot. 
As is the case in most ailments due to parasites, the early symp- 
toms of rot are ill-defined, and may not even lead to a suspicion of 
the cause. 
In these diseases the symptoms depend on the number of para- 
sites and inconvenience caused by their presence, and also to the 
importance in the animal economy of the particular organ invaded. 
A few flukes in the bile ducts may give rise to but slight irrita- 
tion and impairment of function ; whereas, when they invade the 
ducts in large numbers, the pressure and persistent irritation caused 
may lead to such rapid and extensive structural alterations as to 
speedily cause death. Under certain conditions the progress of 
rot may be very rapid, such as in animals that are hard-worked, ill-fed 
and exposed to all weathers ; also in cases where animals already 
in a debilitated state are attacked. Young animals are sometimes 
invaded by such large numbers of flukes that they impair the func- 
tion of the liver to such an extent as to rapidly destroy life. 
As a general rule the progress of rot is slow ; one constant 
symptom is progressive wasting away, due to anaemia. This is not 
