The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
The deductions to be drawn are as follows: That the helminthes like
the ectoparasites multiply by sexual processes, that the entire course
of development of the helminthes is rarely or never gone through in
the same host as is the case with several ectoparasites, that the
progeny at an earlier or later stage of development, as eggs, embryos,
or larvæ, quit the host inhabited by the older generation, and
almost always attain the outer world: only in _Trichinella_ does the
development take place directly in the definite host. Where the eggs
have not yet developed they go through the embryonic evolution in the
outer world. The young larvæ are transmitted, either still enclosed
within the egg or embryonic covering, to the intermediate host or
more rarely they are transferred straight to the final host. In other
cases they may hatch out from their envelopes, and after a longer or
shorter period of free life, during which they may partake of food
and grow, they, as before, penetrate, usually in an active way, into
an intermediate host, or at once invade the final host. Exceptionally
(_e.g._, _Rhabdonema_), during the free life there may be a propagation
of the parasitic generation, and in this case only the succeeding
generation again becomes parasitic, and then at once reaches its final
host. The young forms which have invaded the final host become mature
in the latter, or after a longer or shorter period of parasitism again
wander forth (as the Œstridæ, Ichneumonidæ, etc.), and reach the adult
stage in the outer world. The young stages, during which the parasites
undergo metamorphoses or are even capable of producing one or several
intermediate generations, are passed in the intermediate hosts until,
as a rule, they are passively carried into the final host and there
complete their cycle of development by the formation of the organs
of generation. This mode of development, the spending of life in two
different kinds of animals (intermediate and final host), is typical of
the helminthes. This is manifested in the Acanthocephala, the Cestoda,
the majority of the endoparasitic Trematoda, a number of the Nematoda,
and the Linguatulidæ. There are now and then exceptions, however,
in which, for instance, the host and intermediate host change order
(_Trichinella_, _Hymenolepis murina_).
Parasites are hardly ever inherited amongst animals.[8] According to a
few statements, however, _Trichinella_ and _Cœnurus_ are supposed to
be transmissible from the infected mother to the fœtus. Otherwise most
animals acquire their parasites, especially the Entozoa, from without,
the parasites penetrating either actively, as in animals living in the
water, or passively with food and drink. A particular predisposition to
worms is not more likely than a spontaneous origin of parasites.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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