| Description Of Item | Press cutting of pages 562 to 563 from the Medical Times and Gazette, originally published 31 May 1862. Consists of three cuttings glued together to present the full article. Relates to ‘rot’ (fasciolosis) in sheep. There was an epizootic of this disease amongst sheep in 1860 in many English counties. The article presents the life stages, as there were known at the time, of the parasitic worm responsible for the infection, called ‘liver fluke’ (‘distoma hepaticum’ or fasciola hepatica). The conclusion is that multiple hosts are necessary for the fluke to fully form, as experiments have shown that sheep become infected only when ingesting the parasite in its pupa state, from which it is transformed into a fully-formed fluke. The article briefly mentions transmission to humans as result of prolonged contact with dead sheep (citing the case of a butcher). It then lists the post-mortem symptoms present in a sheep which had died of rot.
From the collection of Thomas Laycock. |