Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the EctozoaCobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Science
Parasites: A Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals: Including Some Account of the Ectozoa
Cobbold, T. Spencer (Thomas Spencer)
Helminths; Parasites
“However, notwithstanding the doubts which hover over the future
value of these curious discoveries, it is difficult not to recognise
their importance in the study of certain tropical diseases--which up
to the present time have been attributed to vague and undetermined
causes--hæmato-chyluria and elephantoid affections principally.
Apart from the interest which attaches to the natural history of
the nematoids, they raise, in effect, etiological and prophylactic
questions, the extreme importance of which we believe it would be
needless to demonstrate. It is greatly to be desired that the researches
should be taken up in other parts of the globe, where endemicity
and perhaps greater facilities for necroscopic investigation would
render them fruitful--Cochin-China, Tahiti, &c. Fresh observations are
necessary to confirm the first and to fill up notable gaps. The way has
been brilliantly opened by the English and Brazilian physicians. Let our
colleagues in the French colonies put their shoulders to the wheel; they
have before them a vast field of study to explore.”
Since the above remarks were written I have received several
communications from Dr Bancroft, and also others from Drs da Silva Lima,
Araujo, Assis Sousa, Paterson, Hall, of Bahia--the two last named being
English physicians in practice there. I regret that I can do little more
than refer to the writings of these authors in the Bibliography below;
but I may observe that Drs Paterson and Hall have ascertained that the
proportion of the population of Bahia affected by Filaria is 8-1/2 per
cent. Out of 309 persons examined, 26 had hæmatozoa, which is, roughly,
one in twelve, or more strictly, 8·666 per cent.
Amongst recent memoirs that by Sir J. Fayrer, read to the
Epidemiological Society on the 5th of February, 1879, deserves especial
attention. In regard to its significance, I have only space to remark
that, much as we may regret the little interest shown by our hospital
physicians and surgeons in this subject, it is particularly gratifying
to see experienced Indian officers like Sir J. Fayrer, Mr Macnamara, and
Dr John Murray, coming forward both to aid and render homage to their
junior colleagues in Eastern parts, who are successfully labouring to
advance the cause of helminthology and scientific medicine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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