The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
Subsequently this parasite has often been observed in human beings,
and various cases have been recorded. These occurred in Russia,
Scandinavia, Finland, Cochin China, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Sunda
Islands, Philippine Islands, China, and in other parts of Asia and in
America. Other cases were reported by Askanazy, Ehrnroth, Klimenko,
Nagel, Koslowsky, Kossler, Waljeff, Strong and Musgrave, Glaessner[248]
and others. Sievers found _B. coli_ very common in Finland.
[248] _Centralbl. f. Bakt._, Orig., xlvii, p. 351.
In the majority of the cases described by Sievers from Finland,
and in other cases from Central Europe, the patients suffered from
obstinate intestinal catarrh, which did not always cease even after
the Balantidia had disappeared. On the other hand, Balantidia have
occasionally still been found to persist, though in small numbers,
after the catarrh has been cured. Some authors, nevertheless, do
not regard Balantidia as the primary cause of the various diseases
of the large intestine, which often commence with the development of
ulcers, but they consider that they may aggravate these diseases and
render them obstinate. According to Solowjew, Askanazy, Klimenko and
Strong and Musgrave, however, the parasites penetrate the intestinal
wall, and give rise to ulcerations which may extend deeply into the
submucosa, and even be found in the blood and lymphatic vessels of the
intestinal wall. According to Stokvis, _B. coli_ occurs also in the
lung; at all events this author states that he found one living and
several dead paramæcia (?) in the sputum of a soldier, returned from
the Sunda Islands, who was suffering from a pulmonary abscess. Sievers
has shown that _B. coli_ might occur in persons not suffering from
intestinal complaints, but E. L. Walker[249] (1913) states that every
person parasitised with _B. coli_ is liable sooner or later to develop
balantidian dysentery.
[249] _Philip. Jl. Sc._, Sec. B, viii, p. 333.
Since Leuckart confirmed the frequent presence of _B. coli_ in the
rectum of pigs, and corresponding observations were made in other
countries, the pig is universally considered to be the means of the
transmission of Balantidium to man. The encysted stages only serve
for transmission, because, according to all observations, the free
parasites have a very small power of resistance. They perish when the
fæces have become cool; they cannot live in ordinary, slimy, or salt
water. As they are killed by acids even when much diluted, they cannot
pass through the normal stomach alive except under the most unusual
circumstances. The pigs, in whose intestines the Balantidium appears to
cause little or no disturbance, evacuate numerous encysted Balantidia
with the fæces, and their occasional transference to man brings about
their colonization there, but perhaps only when a disease of the colon
already exists.
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