COCCIDIOSIS IN YOUNG CALVES

Discharges of blood per rectum, associated with oocysts of coccidia, were observed occurring in young calves during the warmer season of the year. In a small percentage of the cases death was probably due directly to the coccidiosis. Although the disease, known as red dysentery in Switzerland, may have existed in this country for some time, there seems to have been no knowledge of its existence and no reports of it have thus far been published. The coccidia have been artificially cultivated and shown to produce four spores. Two oocysts of quite different dimensions and having minor differential characters were encountered in the same animal in several instances. The invasion of the epithelium of the small intestine was slight. The chief seat of the parasitism was the large intestine. The lesions following the loss of epithelium were superficial hemorrhages and filling up of the denuded tubules with polymorphonuclear leukocytes.