Other flukes found in the first stomach and intestines of cattle have rarely proved especially injurious. It is different with the Bilharzia Crassa which produces white, albuminous urine in man, and is charged with causing Epizoiitic Hematuria in cattle. The giant-fluke of lungs and liver of sheep and cattle encysts itself, causing dark red nodules. Fatal results are common when they are numerous. Prevent and treat as for other flukes.
Round Worms.— These are cylindrical, have true digestive organs and the sexes in two separate individuals. Some produce live young, some through eggs laid, some like Trichina pass their immature life in one host, which being eaten by another goes on to maturity in the latter; others pass through both stages in the same host; some again pass immature life in water outside the mammalian host. Cattle harbor from 15 to 20 species of round worms, a number of which spend their entire life in one host and leave their progeny in the same for the next generation. Some therefore must be treated with vermifuges given to the host, others may have their career cut short by removing the intermediate host that harbors the immature parasite, or the water which favors the survival of the young worm out side. Great factories flourish on medicine intended to destroy the mature worm in its mammal host, which is too often but a closure of the spigot to let the vessel gush at the bung hole. Worms resemble contagious diseases in this, that they must be destroyed both outside and inside the host wherever found. Much depends on where in the body the worm makes its habitat. If in the solid tissues or even in the blood, it is less effectively reached by medicine; if in the lungs gases and vapors (non-poisonous to the host) are often the most promising agents, and even in the case of worms living free in the bowels, the multiple stomach of cattle and other ruminants en dangers the dilution and weakening of the drug to an extent that is not met with in the small simple stomach of horse, man and other non ruminating animals. All round worms living in the alimentary tract impair digestion and absorption of the foodstuffs by their move ments and the consequent irritation, as well as by consuming of nutriment needed by the host. The bloodsuckers irritate still more by the many punctures and undermine the health by the amount of blood extracted. Some even secrete poisons that destroy the blood func tions, or even break down blood globules and with them health and vigor. The eggs of many worms fall with the excretions and live in the soil or in water for a year, so that on pastures they are liable to continuous increase, unless all hosts of that worm are excluded for years, or, better, unless ploughed up and put under cultivated crops for years. Among round worms living in the tissues of cattle may be named a hairworm inhabiting the eye and the serous cavity of the abdomen; the encysted trichina in muscles (rare in cattle) ; a hairworm in beautiful zigzag lines in the mucous membrane of the gullet and many em bryo worms in the blood. Among those living
in the bowels: one whipworrn in the blind gut; one Ascaris (like an earthworm) in the small intestine; five strongles (round) large and small, in the bowels (very irritating) and one hookworm (very injurious): in the air passages, 2 strongles giving rise to husky paroxysmal cough and much loss of condition, with expectoration containing worms: in or near the urinary organs the giant strongle (very harmful).
Intestinal Worms are liable to cause irregu lar bowel motions, costive or loose, unthrifty skin and a fur around the anus from dried up mucus. The worms can often be seen in the droppings. As prevention change herd in pasture (horses or swine for cattle), change of water if from a running stream with herd above; feed liberally of salt, give a course of finely powdered copperas, areca nut, naphthalin, quassia water, wormseed or other verrnifuze. For hookwOrms give thymol and be careful to prevent the embryos entering through the skin from the infested soil.
and Constitutional Dis are not self-propagating nor pestilential and thus make less appeal to the public. They are due mainly to generally operating causes — climatic, dietetic, chemical mechanical, electrical, pluvial or otherwise unhygienic. They are to be prevented by sub jecting each individual in sound health to the conditions that stimulate the healthy bodily functions so as to maintain a normal equilib rium. This would include good air, ample but well-balanced diet, regular exercise, never to extreme exhaustion, the avoidance of all chem ical poisons whether originating inside or out side the body, and of all mechanical injuries that would in any way impair bodily functions. Yet there may at any time occur a combination of contagious or parasitic disease on the one hand and a sporadic disease on the other, so as to demand a common consideration of the two. A bodily impairment or debility result ing from a contagion or a parasite may make a subject more susceptible to the injurious ac tion of cold and heat, humidity or dryness, electric action or impure air, than would other wise have been the case, and on the other side an injury due to cold or heat, etc., may un balance the functions and system so that a microbe may meet with less resistance when it attacks the enfeebled body. Thus it is often needful especially to guard a patient suffering from a sporadic disease from the danger of infection and the victim of a plague from any disorder due to defective hygiene or care. It becomes desirable to employ autotherapy in the complex malady, along with the standard treatment for the sporadic affection present.