768 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
I may say, at least of our recent pupils, tliat they take a 
relatively greater interest in the helminths of (logs than in 
those of the more important animals. When incidentally 
conversing with people on this subject I have been not a 
little amused at their statements respecting the advice they 
have received from persons practising in that flourishing 
branch of the healing art known as “ canine practice.” 
Believing that many unqualified practitioners (ignorant 
alike of the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of dogs) 
succeed in imposing upon the public, I think it both a 
praiseworthy action and good sign on the part of the junior 
members of the veterinary profession that they have taken 
up this study so warmly. As regards parasites, there is 
no animal that plays such an important role as the dog. It 
is this much-loved household pet that harbours an ento- 
zoon, the larvae of which prove fatal to one sixth of all 
the people who die in Iceland; and many years have passed 
since, at a meeting of the British Association for the Ad¬ 
vancement of Science, 1 publicly expressed the opinion that 
annually several hundreds of persons fall victims to the same 
parasite in the United Kingdom. A proportionately greater 
number of persons perish from the same cause in our 
Australian colonies, let alone the injurious action of these 
parasites upon animal life. From various considerations, 
therefore, the canine entozoa, and their allies infesting other 
carnivora, demand attention. On this subject I have re¬ 
ceived more or less generally interesting communications 
from Mr. J. Boalfe Cox, of Mount Street, Grosvenor Square ; 
from Mr. Harry Olver, M.R.C.V.S., of Tamworth; Mr. 
Charles Moir, of Cardiff; Mr. Charles Taylor, of Notting¬ 
ham ; Mr. Lewis, at St. Alban’s; and from many other 
former students, such as Mr. George Goodacre, of Ketter¬ 
ing ; Mr. Richard Morgan, Mr, William Cooper, Mr. A. 
Nunn, Mr. E. E. Batt, Mr. H. J. Kelly, and Mr. J. T. King, 
of Bournemouth. The last-named contributor has recently 
sent full-grown nematodes from a puppy only one month 
old, and also some “ worms removed from the eye of a dog.”* 
On the very special subject of canine hsematozoa, including 
the heart-worms which prove so fatal to dogs in China, 
Japan, and elsewhere. I have been favoured with much 
information from medical friends and others—one of my 
* Since the delivery of this lecture I have carefully examined Mr. King’s 
specimens, or rather specimen. The single lilament or shred of organic 
matter in the bottle gave no unequivocal evidence of nematode structure. 
Its thorough decomposition was attested by the abundant presence of my¬ 
celial threads, conidia, and sporules of a fnngus.—T. S. C, 
