Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: sheep

  • Fasciola hepatica, the liver fluke of sheep and cattle

    The liver flukes Fasciola hepatica and gigantica are parasitic infections that affect humans and animals—cattle, sheep, and goats—in all inhabited areas where they are raised, on all continents, and in over eighty countries. People acquire the disease by eating raw vegetables such as watercress that have been contaminated by one of thirty species of snails,…

  • Echinococcus granulosus, the sheepdog worm

    In the days when Britain ruled the waves and its colonies, some sheep from Thomas Hardy’s Wessex and other counties followed their masters to the antipodes instead of stupidly jumping off a cliff.1 They multiplied in the sun and produced much wool, some of which was later returned to England under the imperial preference system…