Disinfection of manure to destroy the contained eggs or embryos.
The use of chalk, iron sulphate, various acids, etc.
As regards curative treatment, the diseased animals should be grouped and isolated as far as possible, and should receive doses of the following vermifuge:—
| Powdered areca nut | 2 ounces. |
| Arsenic | 30 grains. |
The above is sufficient for ten animals, and a dose should be given daily for a period of six days in a small quantity of bran. Treatment is completed by abundant nourishment, and by distributing about the pastures pieces of rock-salt suitably protected.
Many other vermicides or vermifuges have been suggested, but are less easy to use. They comprise essence of turpentine, mixtures of oil with essence of turpentine and benzine, picrate of potash in doses of 7 to 20 grains per day, ethereal extract of male fern, etc.
LUMBRICOSIS OF CALVES.
Following the example of human medicine, we apply the term “lumbricosis” to a disease caused by ascarides in calves, although Neumann separates the ascarides of calves from the lumbricoid ascarides with which they are usually confused in current practice.
Causation. The disease is exclusively due to infestation with embryos of the parasite, which in young calves afterwards develop in the first portions of the intestine and in the abomasum, interfering with secretion, and producing mechanical disturbance, colic, and digestive irregularity, eventually followed by marked loss of condition. Death may even follow, either from rupture of the pylorus or duodenum, or from secondary septicæmia of intestinal origin, due to the parasites burrowing into the mucous membrane and facilitating infection. In adults of all species lumbricosis is rare. It occurs principally in young animals from the time of weaning up to the age of eighteen months or two years.
The diagnosis cannot usually be formed until the parasites are found in the fæces, but microscopic examination sometimes reveals the presence of the eggs, and thus excites suspicion.