The symptoms are those of irritation, itch ing of the anus and nose, restlessness, and nervousness. They are worse at night. Chil dren grind their teeth, toss off the clothes, &c., and, as with the round-worms, may be attacked with convulsions. The appetite is often exces sive and the bowels irregular.
Treatment—Santoniu, 1 to 3 grains, along with f grain of podophyllin, is given to drive the worms down as far as possible. After that, repeated injections of warm water to which salt is added bring them away. Injections of water with infusion of quassia may also be used. The patient should also get good food, vegetables being avoided, and should have a course of quinine and iron tonic.
The (Trichocephalue Diapar) is more common on the Continent than in Great Britain. It abounds in Italy, Egypt, and the United States of America.
The female is about 2 inches long, and the male 1 inch. The worm has a thick rounded body ending in a fine thread-like tail, which is about two-thirds of the entire length of the animal.
Symptoms of its presence seem to be absent as a rule. Its presence may be discovered by the detection by the microscope of the eggs.
Treatment is the same as for the round worm.
Dochmius duodenails (Scleraooma duode nale) is the name of a worm common in Egypt and Northern Italy. It measures nearly inch long. They attach themselves to the lining membrane of the upper part of the small intes tine, and suck the blood of their victims. They thus produce bloodlessness in the person, and occasion the disease called chlorosis, or green sickness, caused by loss of blood. They may kill iu this way. They were the cause of a serious fatality among the labourers at work on the St. Gothard Tunnel.
The treatment consists in giving extract of male-fern, as advised for tape-worm (p. 261).
Trichina spiralis (The Flesh-worm or Spiral Thread-worm, Trichinosis).—This is a worm to which man and flesh-eating animals are liable. It is shown in Fig. 123, highly magnified, where it is seen to be coiled up in a lemon -shaped cyst. The worm is very small, the male measuring inch, and the female inch. They inhabit the
voluntary muscles of the body, and to the naked eye appear in their cysts as minute white specks. The specks are gritty, because of particles of lime that get deposited in the walls of the cyst. The history of the parasite is as follows :—Man is infected with them from eating the flesh of some animal containing them. The pig especially is the source of infection, but they are capable of living in other animals—cats, dogs, rabbits, calves, &c. A person having eaten improperly cooked meat containing the Trichinte, the cap ' sules are dissolved by the gastric juice, and the worm freed. It develops rapidly, becomes mature on the second day, produces eggs which, while still within the womb of the mother, develop embryo. The embryos escape into the intestinal canal of the host after the sixth day and proceed to wander. They eat their way through the intestinal walls and migrate through the body. Gaining entrance to blood-vessels, they are carried to every organ. They seek the muscles, into which they pass and settle down among the connective tissues between the fibres. They have reached their destination in about fourteen days. In its place the worm becomes coiled up, and in time a cyst is formed round it. One pig in fected with Trichinae may contain as many as sixteen millions, and yet may never display any symptoms of irritation. In man, however, serious symptoms arise, and death often results.
Symptoms.—Within a day or two after eat ing the infected meat, the person suffers from thirst, loss of appetite, irregularity of bowels, perhaps diarrhoea, pains and uneasiness in the belly ; in short, there are signs of intestinal irritation. There are also some fever and quickened pulse. Later, when the person may be recovering from these symptoms, and at the time when the young animals pursue their wanderings, there are rheumatic-like pains in the limbs, only it is the muscles, not the joints, that are affected, and the pain is accompanied by swelling.