a form of Strongylus, both barren and charged with ova.[1] Still more recently this important matter has been explored by an eminent French pathologist, M. Mégnin. This gentleman was induced to turn his attention to the question in consequence of the outbreak of a severe epidemic among brown hares in Alsace. Subsequently he read a paper on the subject before the Paris Biological Society, in which he diagnosed this leporine disorder as a parasitic disease, a sort of pulmonary tuberculosis, in fact. It was due to the presence of Strongylus commutatus in the lungs of the affected animals.[2] It is said that a great many hares succumbed to the ravages of the same disease in Thuringia, in the year 1864. That such a contagious disease may in a large measure account for the scarcity of hares is perfectly true. If the fact that the hare is subject to a malady like this was more widely known, perhaps we should often hear of somewhat similar outbreaks. The best remedy for such a disaster would, I imagine, be to destroy all affected animals, and, after a time, to introduce an entirely new strain of blood into the district. We know very little about the diseases from which wild animals suffer. In confinement their maladies are connected more
Page:The Hare.djvu/32
12
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HARE
