Pentastomum Tenioides

This worm occupies that part of the respiratory tube which lies anterior to the larynx, and specially inhabits the nasal sinuses, etc. Obstruction more or less marked is the consequence of its presence in this region.

Chobart first discovered it in the frontal sinus of the horse and the dog. He confounded it with the taenia, and christened it the tenia lanceole. Blan-chard examined many dogs without finding it, and states that the helminthological collection at the Jardin des Plantes contains only two specimens. It has been found in dogs in different parts of the Continent, and also in other animals. Leuckart introduced the Pentastomum denticulatum of the rabbit into the nostrils of a dog, where he afterwards found the Pent. tenioides. He concludes that the former, which lives encysted in the viscera of several species of animals, is the larval form of the latter. He states that mature ripe eggs are thrown off from this parasite and discharged with the nasal mucus of its host in the act of sneezing. These embryonic forms manage somehow or other to get introduced into the bodies of other animals, where they become fully developed. Furstenberg has found the immature or asexual form in the mesenteric glands of the sheep, as developed from the eggs of this parasite, which are swallowed by the sheep with its food. When a dog or wolf eats the entrails and mesenteric glands of such sheep, the embryonic parasite sticks to the nose and lips, and afterwards passes up the nostrils, where it becomes firmly fixed by its hooks. Here the embryo gradually increases in size, is endowed with sexual organs in about two months, and attains its full development in twelve. Colin introduced fifty immature parasites into a Newfoundland dog. Eight months afterwards the dog was killed, and eleven mature parasites, nine males and two females, were found in the ethmoidal cells and about the turbinated bones. The males moved about; the females were fixed by their hooklets to the pituitary membrane, and had their copulative sacs filled with spermatozoa, and their oviducts crammed with eggs.

Symptoms

As to the symptoms produced by the worm, whilst Rudolphi found a dog which he examined perfectly well, and Dujardin, Miram, Colin, etc., make no reference to any disorder in their cases; on the other hand, Chobart gives rather a dark account of the effects produced. The animal, he says, is subject to convulsions, during which it is violently agitated, stops short, hits itself on the head, rolls over, rubs its nose on the ground, and the jaws are convulsively champed. It devours everything within reach, such as wood, straw, etc., discharges a large quantity of saliva, passes urine involuntarily, and sneezes without ceasing. Death sometimes ensues.

The mucous membrane of the nose is found to be red, blackish, ecchymozed, thickened, and ulcerated; the sinuses more or less filled with pus; and even the ethmoid bone sometimes partially carious.

Treatment

Trephine the nostrils and inject with water. Inhalations of chlorine and tobacco smoke. Chloroform?