HYDATIS AND DOGS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43100, 4 June 1907, Page 4

HYDATIS AND DOGS.

The danger incurred by children making 'pets of animals cannot be too. strongly emphasised, and parents would do well to discourage the practice. A fatal exemplification reaches us from Ballarat East:, Victoria, brief mention of which was made in our columns recently. It appears that a little girl, aged five years, had latterly been ailing, and the medical men consulted were unable to definitely determine the cause of the illness of the girl. As the child was in the habit of nursing a pet dog, whieh she allowed to eat from her plate, the mother suspected that perhaps the familiarity with the pet had something to do with the- indisposition of her daughter whose condition . became gradually worse. The little girl became seriously ill, and the next day she died in great agony. Dr. Richards, • who made the post-mortem examination of i the body, found two large hydatid cysts on the heart, their existence apparently heintr due to the child inhaling the breath of the pet dog while nursing it. He stated that she suffered severely from- hydatids, which not only infested the heart, but also th§ left lung and the liver. The case was an extraordinary one. From the lung he removed one cyst, while two were taken from the liver. The hydatids were embedded in the left ventricle of the heart under the mitral valve. Dr Richards said he had no doubt that the presence of hydatids in the Organs of the child was due to her making a playmate of the dog, and to her allowing it to eat off hier plate. The Coroner directed 1 that wide publicity should be given to the cause of the death of the child, as a warning to parents to prevent children playing with domestic animals such as cats and dogs. Apropos of thie above Dr. Mason, Chief Health Officer, in a re-, cent address to mothers at Welling-, ton, voiced a similar warning,