Eleven miscellaneous papers on animal parasites / [Ch. Wardell Stiles and others].

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Eleven miscellaneous papers on animal parasites / [Ch. Wardell Stiles and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    vesiculu wcMiiinaliH present; .spicules 0.15 mm. hmfr; awuis-sory piece trowel-Hhaped, siii^lo, about .)iu-lliird aw long aw Hpicule; bumi bilobed, about as long as spiculen,' somewhat broader than long, with narrow ventral connection; rays asymmetrical, dorsoinedian stem with short bilobed posterior rays; then 1 dorsolateral ray on right, 2 on left; 3 lateral rays each side; finally, 1 (ventral) right and 2 left short ventral rays. Female.—5.6 to 7 mm. long, increasing in diameter from 10 at head to 90 // in posterior third of body. Anus 97 /< from tip of sharply pointed tail. Vulva about at beginning of posterior fifth of body, a 40 jn longitudinal opening bounded by two chitinous labia; unpaired vagina short, dividing into two proximal horns, each 0.3 mm. long; next follows on each horn a complicated valvular apparatus divided into a proximal 0.2 mm. long muscular portion and a 0.1 mm. long distal portion with thinner muscular layer; uteri 0.33 to 0.4 mm. long, each containing 3 to 6 unseg- mented (in camels 7 to 8 unsegmented or partially segmented) eggs; the distal ])or- tion serving as a receptaculum seminis; anterior genital canal extends to near posterior end of cervical glands, then turns and runs a short distance caudad; posterior genital canal runs to near anus, turns and extends to near the equator of the V)ody. Eggs.—Ovsd, 63 by 41 /< (in camels 70 by 36 m), shell thin, contents very granular, unsegmented in uterus (in camel they may be partially segmented). Z)«'eZopmeHy.—Not demonstrated; probably direct, without intermediate host; source of infection, probably drinking water or contaminated food. ^a6i<o<.—Stomach and upper portion of small intestine of man {Homo sapiens) in Egypt and Japan; intestine of camels (Camelus dromedarius). Clinical dicignosis.—Microscopic examination of feces to find eggs will be uncertain, unless the infection is very heavy. The medical importance of this species is not yet determined; the parasite is perhaps comparatively harmless. All cases thus far reported were diagnosed post-mortem. Treatment. —Probably thymol. Looss found this worm several times in both Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt, while making microscopic examinations of the intestinal con- tent of human cadavers. All of the infected bodies were of inhabitants of the flat lands. The infections were all light, and it was noticed that the male parasites were less frequent than the females. Looss concluded that owing to the small size of the worm, its unarmed mouth, and the fewness of the individuals, a pathologic role could hardly be attributed to it. Later (1896) Looss reported the same parasite for the camel. An article by Ijima would seem to leave the question open as to whether the worm is of any medical importance. Ogata had found about two hundred small nematodes in the stomach of a woman who died during the Miura plague of 1889. These he described briefly in the Tokoyo-medicinische Wochenschrift; they were identical with Looss's Strongyhis subtilis. There is no attempt to consider the worms as the cause of the Miura epidemic, but Ijima rightly remarks that the presence of a large number of such parasites can not be lightly dismissed as harmless.