The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
Experimental transmission of the free parasites to animals (per os
or per anum) yielded negative results, even in the case of pigs.
Casagrandi and Barbagallo (1896), however, had positive, as well as
negative, results. They employed healthy young cats, or cats in which
catarrhal entero-colitis had been artificially induced (which in other
experiments is apt to cause the death of the animals experimented upon
in about six or seven days), or finally cats that had dilatation of
the rectum with alkaline reaction of the fæces. An attempt to infect
three healthy cats by injecting human fæces containing Balantidium
into the rectum proved negative, in so far as the fæces of the
experimental animals had an acid reaction and contained no Balantidia,
but at the autopsy performed eight days after infection a few encysted
parasites were found in the mucus of the ileum. In the case of four
cats suffering from entero-colitis, into which human fæces containing
Balantidia were introduced per os, Balantidium cysts were found in the
fæces three days after the last ingestion. Great numbers, moreover,
were found in the cæcum and the posterior part of the small intestine
at the autopsy of the animals, which died about eight days after the
commencement of the experiments. Actual colonization, therefore,
was not effected in either series of experiments. Free or encysted
Balantidia of pigs were used for further experiments. The experiments
proved negative when fæces containing cysts were injected into the
rectum of healthy cats (three experiments), or cats (two) suffering
from spontaneous intestinal catarrh, or when such material was
introduced per os into three healthy cats. In the case of two cats
with intestinal catarrh artificially produced, a small number of the
active Balantidia injected into the rectum remained alive. Larger
quantities of fæces containing encysted Balantidia were introduced into
two other cats affected with the same complaint. These, certainly, did
not appear in the fæces, but small numbers, free and alive, were found
in the cæcum. Similarly, encysted Balantidia were introduced into two
cats with dilated rectum, and whose fæces had an alkaline reaction.
In these cases no parasites appeared in the fæces, but three and five
days later, when the two animals were examined, a very small number
were discovered free in the large intestine. Klimenko did not succeed
in infection experiments with _B. coli_ on young dogs, whose intestines
had been artificially affected by disease.
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