On the prevalence of entozoa in the dog, with remarks on their relation to public health / by T. S. Cobbold, M.D.

  • Thomas Spencer Cobbold
Date:
[cbetween 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the prevalence of entozoa in the dog, with remarks on their relation to public health / by T. S. Cobbold, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    4/24 (page 282)
    obvious in cases of ordinary accident, and also in those diseases (hydrophobia for example), whose nature is either doubtful, or which, at the least, cannot be said to have a parasitic origin; but it comes out much more forcibly when-we confine our attention exclusively to evils arising from entozoa harboured by our domes- ticated animals in their capacity as intermediary bearers. In this communication I select the Dog as pointedly illustrating the correctness of the proposition just advanced; but, at the same time, I may add that, excepting perhaps the equine quadrupeds, I know of no important domestic animal which is not liable, by the agency of its parasites, to inflict on the human body one or other of the injuries just referred to—namely discomfort, disease, or death. I may be permitted also to remark at the outset that all our researches, and especially those of the experimental kind, tend to show how the evils just mentioned may be averted; and many of our investigations having,, in the first instance, a purely scientific object have materially strengthened the results obtained by other researches having merely a practical aim. It may be said that the two methods should go hand in hand, or, at least, paripa^su, in order to ensure brilliant results. Already helminthologists have obtained a considerable success; but it is just one of those successes in which the principal promoters are left without reward. Self-imposed tasks of this kind are more or less the prerogative of all the votaries of science, who, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that they contribute to the public good. To simplify and limit the subject matter before us, I offer, at once, a complete and revised list of all the entozoa (species varieties, and larvae) at present known to infest the dog. In many respects it is interesting to contrast this, as a whole, with the rather more extended list of human entozoa which I have pre- viously communicated to the Zoological Society; but, as will here- after be seen, the mutual relations subsisting between certain members of the two series can only be established by a some- what detailed notice respecting the individual forms. These are as follows:— 1. Holostoma alatum, Nitzsch. 2. Spiroptera sanguinolenta, Rudolphi. 3. Dochmim trigonoceplialus, Dujardin. 4. Trichosoma plica, Eudolphi. 5. Trichocephalus depressiusculm, Rudolphi. n. Trichina spiralis, Owen.