Coenurosis

Coenurosis, also known as caenurosis, coenuriasis, gid or sturdy, is a parasitic infection that develops in the intermediate hosts of some tapeworm species (Taenia multiceps,[1] T. serialis,[2] T. brauni, or T. glomerata).

Adult worms of these species develop in the small intestine of the definitive hosts (dogs, foxes and other canids), causing a disease from the group of taeniasis.

[5][6] However, it was only in the 1600s that clearer behavioural and necropsy descriptions were recorded, including the characteristic brain cysts and early surgical methods of removal.

[7] The cause of these cysts was identified as an animal parasite in 1780 by Nathanael Gottfried Leske and Johann August Ephraim Goeze.

[7] Coenurosis in humans is rare and was not diagnosed until the twentieth century, with the first recorded cases by each Taenia species being: T. multiceps in 1913,[8] T. glomerate in 1919,[9] T. serialis in 1933,[8] and T. brauni in 1956.

[citation needed] Although coenurosis is more commonly associated with domestic animals, it has also been documented in wildlife, such as in mountain ungulates in the French Alps.

[citation needed] In sheep, the usual treatment is surgical trepanation to remove the brain cyst, one of the few economically viable surgeries in farm animals.

[5] Treated sheep typically regain sufficient function to rejoin the flock[5] and necropsy indicates that the site of the cyst collapses and scars, relieving pressure on the brain.