Parasites : a treatise on the entozoa of man and animals including some account of the ectozoa / by T. Spencer Cobbold.

  • Thomas Spencer Cobbold
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Parasites : a treatise on the entozoa of man and animals including some account of the ectozoa / by T. Spencer Cobbold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and it remains for some future laborer to condense the facts which are dispersed throughout a very wide-spread literature. As regards the particular species of nematoids that are either actually known or conjectured to be injurious to birds I can only find space to repeat some of the particulars which I have else- where recorded in respect of Sclerostoma syngamus. In 1799 a letter from Dr Wiesenthal, of Baltimore, U.S., was published in the ' Medical and Physical Journal/ containing an account of a parasite infesting the trachea of fowls and turkeys in America. The communication is dated May 21st, 1797, and is the first public record concerning the entozoon. Dr Wiesenthal says : There is a disease prevalent among the gallinaceous poultry in this country, called the gapes, which destroys eight-tenths of our fowls in many parts, and takes place in the greatest degree among the young turkeys and chickens bred upon old-established farms. Chicks and poults, in a few days after they are hatched, are found frequently to open their mouths wide and gasp for breath, at the same time frequently sneezing and attempting to swallow. At first the affection is slight, but gradually becomes more and more oppressive, and it ultimately destroys. Very few recover ; they languish, grow dispirited, droop, and die. It is generally known that these symptoms are occasioned by worms in the trachea. I have seen the whole [windpipe] completely filled with these worms, and have been astonished at the animals being capable of respiration under such circumstances. Any one who has witnessed the gapes will at once recognise the accuracy of Wiesenthal's description; and so far as the phenomena of the disease are concerned, very little more has been added in the numerous accounts which have since appeared. On the 1st of August, 1808, the English naturalist, George Montagu, communicated to the Wernerian Society a paper entitled Account of a species of Fasciola which infests the trachea of poultry, with a mode of cure. Mon- tagu does not appear to have been aware of the existence of any previous record. He gave a scientific description of the parasite, which led to its being noticed in the systematic works of Rudolphi, Dujardin, and Diesing, but the best accounts of the worm are due to Yon Siebold. Sclerostoma syngamus has been found in the trachea of the turkey, domestic cock, pheasant, partridge, black stork, magpie, hooded crow, green woodpecker, starling, and swift. In July, 1860, I obtained a fowl suffering from the gapes, and operated upon it in the