The tag-tail is a worm of a pale flesh-colour, with a yellow tag, almost half an inch long: it is found in marled land or meadows, after a shower, or in the morning, in calm and not cold weather in March and April. In discoloured water by rain, it is considered a fatal bait for trout. They will not endure long scouring.
A three-prong dung-fork thrust into the ground, and continually moving it, will force all the worms within a certain distance to come instantly out of their holes; supposing, from the shaking of the earth, it is the mole’s heaving to come at them.
Get a parcel of cow or horse-hair, and cut it five or six inches long, into a pan; throw the worms upon it, and in a couple of hours they will have cleared themselves from the chief of their dirt; take them from amongst the hair, observing that none of it sticks to them, and selecting out the dead or wounded worms; clean the pan from the hair and filth, and put the worms into it, covering them with garden mould, about an inch thick: they will keep a very long time in this manner, moistening it once a day with new milk, and changing it every month, to prevent the growth of young worms, which would occasion the death and decay of the old.
Amongst the old recipes for scouring worms, the putting them into a powder got from a dead man’s skull, by beating it to atoms, was deemed super-excellent.
When worms are wanted for immediate use, and no provision has been made, the way to scour them quickly, is, if lob-worms, to put them all night in water; brandlings must not remain above one hour in it, and both sorts must be then put with fennel into the angler’s worm-bag.
Worms of different kinds inhabit the intestines; but except when they exist in very great numbers, they are not so hurtful as is generally supposed, although the groom or carter may trace to them hidebound, and cough, and loss of appetite, and gripes, and megrims, and a variety of other ailments. Of the origin or mode of propagation of these parasitical animals we will say nothing; neither writers on medicine, nor even on natural history, have given us any satisfactory account of the matter.
The long white worm (lumbricus teres) much resembling the common earth-worm, and, being from six to ten inches long, inhabits the small intestines. It is a formidable looking animal, and if there are many of them, they may consume more than can be spared of the nutritive part of the food, or the mucus of the bowels; and we think that we have seen a tight skin, and rough coat, and tucked up belly, connected with their presence. They have then, however, been voided in large quantities, and when they are not thus voided, we should be disposed to trace these appearances to other causes. A dose of physic will sometimes bring away almost incredible quantities of them. Calomel is frequently given as a vermifuge. The seldomer this drug is administered to the horse the better. It is the principal ingredient in some quack medicines for the expulsion of worms in the human subject, and thence, perhaps, it came to be used for the horse; but in him we believe it to be inert as a vermifuge, or only useful as quickening the operation of the aloes. When the horse can be spared, a strong dose of physic is an excellent vermifuge, so far as the long round worm is concerned; but perhaps a better medicine, and not interfering with either the feeding or work of the horse, is two drachms of emetic tartar, with a scruple of ginger, made into a ball, with linseed meal and treacle, and given every morning half an hour before the horse is fed.
A smaller, darker coloured worm, called the needle worm, or ascaris, inhabits the large intestines. Hundreds of them sometimes descend into the rectum, and immense quantities have been found in the cœcum. These are a more serious nuisance than the former, for they cause a very troublesome irritation about the fundament, which sometimes sadly annoys the horse. Their existence can generally be discovered by a small portion of mucus, which hardening, is converted into a powder, and is found about the anus. Physic will sometimes bring away great numbers of these worms; but when there is much irritation about the tail, and much of this mucus, indicating that they have descended into the rectum, an injection of a quart of linseed oil, or of an ounce of aloes dissolved in warm water, will be a more effectual remedy.
The tape worm is seldom found in the horse.