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A Cause of Appendicitis 
Trichosoma longicolle Rudolphi. 
T. longicolle lives in the duodenum and upper end of small 
intestine (jejunum), sometimes alone, sometimes associated with H. 
microps. They are not very evidently associated with grave disease, 
but when they are present they seem to cause a great destruction 
of the lining epithelium which even in birds just killed and quite 
warm is cast off in large clumps and masses. This form like its near 
ally Trichocephalus trichiurus 1 of the human intestine has an extra¬ 
ordinarily fine head and neck, hardly much greater in diameter than 
one of the epithelial cells lining the grouse’s duodenum and this could 
easily, and we believe does at times, pierce the wall of the intestine 
and so let out bacteria, harmless enough in the alimentary tract but 
capable at times of exerting a pathogenic action when they reach the 
tissues of the intestinal wall or the peritoneal cavity. 
Trichostrongylus per gracilis (Cobbold). 
The second common Nematode of the digestive apparatus of the 
grouse is the Trichostrongylus pergracilis found in the caeca, and here 
it should be mentioned that the caeca form a large and very important 
part of the digestive apparatus in a grouse. Together they are at least 
as long as the whole of the rest of the alimentary tract, and in them 
absorption of the digested food takes place. When the caeca of the 
grouse contain a large number of the T. pergracilis its tissues undergo 
profound changes. The pathological changes associated with the 
presence of these worms are still the subjects of investigation but that 
the presence of the worms is intimately associated with grave disease, 
there can be no doubt. 
As was the case with the Trichosoma of the duodenum so is it with 
the Trichostrongylus of the caeca. Both when alive are as transparent 
as a Sagitta. For a long time we could only detect them after the 
addition of some such reagent as corrosive sublimate when they became 
opaque and visible. Latterly Di Wilson has devised a simpler method 
of verifying their presence. It is to press a thin film of the caecal 
contents between two microscopic slides and to hold this up to the light, 
then if any worms are present they stand out as transparent lines 
against the background of the semi-transparent chyme. 
1 = Ttichocephalus dispar Budolphi, 1801. 
