The food inspector's encyclopaedia / by A. Horace Walker.

  • Walker, A. Horace (Albert Horace), 1876-
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The food inspector's encyclopaedia / by A. Horace Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    210/324 (page 200)
    sometimes in the bronchia] tubes. It is scientifically named Syngamus trachealis. The gape-worm is also known as the red-worm and forked-worm. Not only fowls and turkeys, but pheasants, partridges, sparrows, linnets, star- lings, rooks, martins, swifts, and green woodpeckers, are also invaded by this parasite. The disease is caused by the worms taking up their abode in the air passages, attaching themselves by their circular mouths, sucking the blood, irritating the membrane, and causing inflammation. These pests, if present in large numbers, also block up the windpipe and stop the passage of air to the lungs. In either case the birds may succumb. Chickens up to four weeks old are the most susceptible. The gape-worm is nearly always found in copula inside the host, the small male worm being permanently attached to the female towards her head end, and the two worms making a fork ; hence the name of forked-worm. The smaller branch of the fork is the male. It is chiefly in chicks and turkey poults that gapes causes the greatest mortality, although old birds are sometimes attacked. The birds contract the disease by picking up eggs or embryos from infected ground or polluted water, or by eating worms containing the eggs ; probably also in eating earth-worms that have swallowed the eggs of the gape-worm. That wild birds play some part in the dissemination of gapes is also extremely probable. The Symptoms of gapes are a curious listless gaping of the mouth, a wheezing cough and stretching forward of the neck, a ruffling of the feathers, and a drooping of the wings, while there is frequently an appearance of frothy saliva in the mouth, and sometimes in the nostrils. The gape-worm is reddish in colour, often bright red. The male measures up to \ inch in length, and the female up to A inch. 2. White Intestinal Worms.—^Death is not frequent from intesti- nal worms, yet weakness is very often caused hy two nema- tode worms, Heterakis papulosa and H. inflexa. These worms are found in different parts of the small intestine, often in considerable numbers. Sometimes they interfere with the passage of food by forming a plug and blocking up the alimentary canal. Birds infested with them are usually ravenous, and yet keep losing condition.