Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 553, 20 February 1868, Page 3

Extraordinary Affair. —The Melbourne Age, of Thursday last, contains the following :—A very strange occurrence, as a local journal reports, took place at Cockatoo about three weeks ago, and which deserves some notice. The wife of a respectable resident at that place hud been for some time in a weak state of health, and, ou obtaining medical advice was pronounced to be enceinte; but such, it. aopears, was not the case, and the medical man must evidently have been deceived by some similar symptoms, as the event shows. At the time above-mentioned, site overstrained herself by lifting some heavy buckets of water from a cart, and feeling sick, went to a neighbor’s, where she retched, and having brought up from her stomach, with great difficulty, a living creature, about nine inches in length, of a white color, and described as being hall as thick as her wrist, having no joints like a worm, but very active; so mucli so, that when touched it threw up its tail like u scorpion, while She mouth was like that of a lizard’s. Several of the neighbors saw the reptile, and can vouch for the accuracy of the statement, and regret is expressed that it was buried, instead of being sent to one of the medical men for preservation. The poor women believes that another ( f the same species is still in her stomach, from the movements which are felt am; the griping pain she experiences, and probably had the creature been properly ex amined by a scientific man, means might have been devised for the eradication of others of the sort. One gentleman (a doctor; on hearing of the affair, said that such cases were not without precedent, although rare, but that science was a; fault as to the proper means to be used in them.

The Gapes is Pori.rnr,—Wo call particular attention to the subjoined facts with reference to that very destructive affection termed the “ popes,” which cause? (he death of so many young phoaeants and other gallinaceous birds. In the Zoological Gardens the first brood of the Chinese eared-pbeasant? were put out upon (he grass under their foster-mother,' and every bird of them succumbed to this affliction after appearing to thrive remarkably well for some weeks. The second of the species was placed in a dry aviary, whore the only water given to them had been subjected to the process of boil ing. Every bird throve, until when about the size of partridges, they too were put out upon the grass and after a while one of them was found to be suffering from the gapes, and was apparently about to die, so that it was doubtful whether it could bo carried alive to the house of the superintendent. It recovered, however, on the application of a very simple remedy, and the next day was as strong nun vigorous as ever. The plan adopted was to°take a suitable feather, strip it of its veins to near the tip, which was dipped in olive oil, and then very finely pounded common salt, a little of which adhered to the oil ; and it was forthwith inserted into the windpipe through the larynx, and gently turned about within it. The effect of the salt was to detach the worms immediately, which the bird immediately coughed up, together with a quantity of mucus, and it was completely relieved. There seems to be no doubt that the germs of the so-called worms that infest the trachea are taken up with the water that the birds sip, and that those germs are destroyed by boiling the water. We present our readers, accordingly, with the means both of prevention and curs of this troublesome and destrueUre affection.— Land and Water.