Recent Agricultural Publications. 
397 
PARASITIC DISEASES OF ANIMALS.' 
Parasitism, with the diseases incident thereon, affords an almost 
limitless field for study, and is steadily attracting an increasing 
number of specialists within its' domains. The appearance in 
English dress of the well-known treatise of Neumann may be taken 
as an indication of the growing interest manifested in the subject in 
this country, whilst the presence of Dr. Fleming’s distinguished 
name upon the title-page is an unquestionable guarantee of the care 
which has been bestowed upon the difficult task of translation and 
annotation. 
Comprehensive as the volume is, it has not been found prac- 
ticable, in dealing with the parasitic diseases of our domesticated 
animals, to include those very small and subtle parasites usually 
designated “ microbes.” On the other hand, the diseases discussed 
are nearly all associated with the presence of relatively large para- 
sites — of those the distinctive characters of which can fairly well 
be recognised without the aid of the microscope. 
In an introductory essay on parasitic diseases in general, it is 
pointed out that the state of the surroundings in which the domes- 
ticated animals are placed may favour or hinder the multiplication 
of parasites. Animals whose skins receive but little attention are 
liable to the attacks of lice and scab-pests ; and those which are 
clipped have more chance of escaping them. Crowded and dirty 
habitations aid in the propagation of parasites. The Herbivora 
(cattle, sheep, &c.), which live at pasture, alone harbour the larvae 
of the (Estridse (ox warble fly, &c.) ; butchers’ and shepherds’ dogs 
are the favourite hosts of certain tapeworms whose alternating 
bladder-worm, or cystic, life is passed in the tissues of Herbivora. 
As regards the names applied to parasitic diseases, they were 
formerly given with reference to some important symptom,— such 
are the terms scab or mange, red mange, ringworm, herpes, favus, 
rot, measles, gid (hoose), ic. At present the general tendency is to 
designate each parasitic disease by a word the root of which is 
obtained from the name of the genus to which the parasite belongs, 
and the termination of which is furnished by asis or osis. Thus, 
Phthiriasis (from (fiOelp, a louse) is a general name for the cutaneous 
disorder due to the presence of lice on the surface of the skin 
(lousiness). Acariasis includes all the diseases caused by Acarina 
or Acaridse, which embrace the ticks, wood-mites, and scab-pests. 
Trichinosis is the disease induced by the presence in the muscles or 
the intestines of the thread-worm. Trichina spiralis (Fig. 1). 
In combating the ecto-parasites — those that infest the outer sur- 
faces of the body — the animals attacked should be isolated, and the 
' A Treatise on the Parasites and Parasitic Diseases of the Domesticated 
Animals. By L. G. Neumann, Professor at the National Veterinary School of 
Toulouse. Translated and edited by George Fleming, C.B., LL.D.,'F.R.C.V.S, 
Pages xxiii -f 800, with 365 illustrations. London : Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox. 
1892. 
VOL III. T. S. — 1 0 p D 
