Onchocerca gibsoni : the cause of worm nodules in Australian cattle / by J.A. Gilruth and Georgina Sweet ; with notes on worm nests in Australian cattle and in camels (extracts from Report of Government Bureau of Microbiology of New South Wales for 1909) / by J. Burton Cleleand and T. Harvey Johnston.
- Gilruth, J. A.
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Onchocerca gibsoni : the cause of worm nodules in Australian cattle / by J.A. Gilruth and Georgina Sweet ; with notes on worm nests in Australian cattle and in camels (extracts from Report of Government Bureau of Microbiology of New South Wales for 1909) / by J. Burton Cleleand and T. Harvey Johnston. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![]7 The chyle intestine varies about 0-046 mm. in diameter, its lumen being in parts nearly obliterated. At about 0-207 mm. from the anal opening, where it passes into the rectum, the posterior end of the chyle intestine is suddenly constricted to about one-third its previous diameter. The rectum (fig. 8) is a much swollen flask or pear-shaped structure, its total length being o-2 mm., and its maximum diameter 0-082 mm. The lining of the rectum is chitinous, and it contains a considerable quantity of granular material. Nearly o-2 mm. in front of the junction of the chyle intestine and the rectum, there begins an irregular group of cells (see fig. 8), which extends back to slightly behind this plane, and, doubtless, comparable to those found in many other nematodes, though usually less numerous than in this form, and variously described in other forms as ganglion cells, or, more generally, as unicellular glands. They lie in 0. gibsoni chiefly on the ventral surface, though they extend half-way up the sides of the body, being attached to the body wall. The granular material fn the rectum has a similar appearance to the content of the cells now under consideration. Whether these cells are the exact equivalent of the three large pear- shaped cells described by various authors (quoted by Looss in the “ Sclerostomes of Horses and Donkeys/' in the report of the Egyptian School of Medicine, Cairo, 1901, p. 58) is uncertain, though probable. Their large number in this form makes one hopeful that a further study of them may elucidate their morphological and physiological character— but as only one of the female tails we have obtained is of good histological preservation, and as so far the tail of the female has not been found or at least recorded by other observers, we do not wish to use it for section purposes, at all events at present. Surrounding the body at the level of the anal opening is a muscle band, the fibres of which spread dorsally in a fan-like manner, very similar to that found in other nematodes in a comparable position. In the anterior end of the body of several worms, but especially clearly in specimen C, were to be seen three small brownish yellow disc-like structures, the largest of which was 0-0189 mm., the others 0-0146 mm. in diameter, lying in the body cavity. They consist of about a dozen highly retractile yellowish granules, which are larger in the larger structures. Their position, in relation to the other organs of the body cavity, is indicated in fig. 6. 15](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28136330_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
