EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 
22 
EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 
UPON AN EPILEPTIFORM AND CONTAGIOUS AFFECTION IN THE 
DOG, DUE TO AN ACARUS OF THE AUDITIVE CANAL. 
By M. P. Megnin. 
A wealthy gentleman reported to me, that he had several 
hunting dogs,"which all, though of different origin and various 
breeds, were affected with an epileptiform disease which, after 
several months of suffering, would end in death. This had con¬ 
tinued for several, years, and all the dogs that he buys, to take 
the place of the dead ones, after three or four months become af¬ 
fected with the same disease, and succumb to it. Though the 
kennel has been well disinfected several times and whitewashed, 
the epizootic persists continuously without change. 
Desirous to study the disease and watch it de visu , I was given 
a beautiful terrier, which on account of its sufferings, the owner 
was about to have destroyed. During eight days, I watched him 
at all times, and witnessed the repeated epileptic attacks. I es¬ 
pecially noticed the frantic shaking of the ears, which was almost 
continuous. By an examination of the interior of these organs, 
I found that the external auditive canal was lined with a thick 
layer of cerumen, of soot color, maculated with almost imper¬ 
ceptible little white points, which, under the microscope, proved 
to be acarus, of the species I described under the name of choriop- 
tis ecadantus. I had already seen this parasite in other dogs, in 
cats and in ferrets, in the auditive canal of which animals they 
exclusively live, and I knew that in the cat this parasite gives 
rise by its tittilation, to true access of frenzy ; but I did not know 
that in dogs these paroxysms could go so far as to resemble epi- 
lepsj 7 . However, the [presence of this acarus explained the con¬ 
tagious character presented in the affection as exhibited by all 
those dogs, a character which is very extraordinary in an epilepti¬ 
form disease. And the proof that this parasite was surely the 
