ASCARIS LUMBRICOMES.
Preventive treatment is always efficacious; the drinking water should be boiled or filtered, and all uncooked vegetables or salads should he thoroughly soaked in strong salt solution, and washed with care by a strong stream of running water.
Santonin meets every requirement once the patient is known to be the host of the parasite. After a gentle purge or moderate fast, 4 grs. of the drug may he administered to an adult, or 2 grs. to a child 2 years old and upwards. It should always be administered in fine powder. and mixed with a teaspoonful of Castor Oil; in this way the untoward cerebral symptoms, as convulsions and vertigo, may be entirely prevented. If purging does not follow, any mild cathartic like Syrup of Senna may he given, and the worm is usually dead when expelled. The writer has never once seen dangerous symptoms follow the use of santonin when combined with castor oil as prescribed by him in several thousands of instances in the large extern department of a children's hospital.
When a child cannot be made to take the oil, santonin may be well mixed with butter and a little Calomel and administered with bread as a thin sandwich. Yellow vision and orange-red discoloration of the urine are common results, but these always pass off within 24 hours, and need excite no uneasiness. Rhubarb is a commonly used adjuvant, but to young children it is always a nauseous and unnecessary combination.
The examination of a minute particle of heces will show the ova of the parasites if all have not been expelled, hut usually one dose is sufficient. lAscaris nzystax is to be treated in the same way, and with similar dosage.
Recently Oil of Chenopodium (3-6 mins.) given in Castor Oil has proven highly efficient.