THE OCCURRENCE OF SCHISTOSOMA JAPONICUM VEL 
CATTOI IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 
By Pau G. Woo.ey. 
(From the Serum Laboratory, Bureau of Science.) 
As long ago as 1887 Mazima, in Japan, wrote of a peculiar form of 
liver cirrhosis which was caused by an unknown parasite. In succeeding 
years his observations received corroboration from various sources. The 
ova of this parasite were found not only in the liver but also in other 
organs, and it soon became apparent that the observers were dealing with 
a definite endemic disease which was more or less closely confined to the 
Provinces of Bingo, Yamanashi, Hiroshima, and Saga. From a town 
in Bingo (Katayama) the malady has taken its name, so that in Japan 
it is known as the “Katayama disease.” 
In 1904 Katsurada studied fifteen cases of the infection, and in the 
stools of five found ova which resembled those of Schistosomum hama- 
tobium. Later, in dissecting dogs and cats from an infected district, 
he encountered (in a cat) flukes within the portal vessels. These he 
described (August 30, 1904) in a Japanese paper, in which he proposed 
the name Schistosomum japanicum for the parasite. Later, in Decem- 
ber, 1904, Katsurada published again on this subject, this time in German, 
and stated that Fujinami had announced (October, 1904) the discovery 
of a female S. japonicum in a human subject. In the same year, in lesions 
of the liver, mesenteric glands, and intestines of a Chinaman from the 
Province of Fukien, China, Catto, at that time resident medical officer 
of the Singapore quarantine station, found certain bodies which he 
believed to be coccidia. The case was first reported as one of coccidiosis, 
but later this diagnosis was changed, and in September, 1904, the claim 
was set forth that the bodies were the ova of a new parasite. Later still, 
Blanchard, after seeing Catto’s specimens, gave the trematode the name 
of Schistosoma cattoi, and in 1905 Catto described it under that title. 
Catto based his description upon material obtained from the human sub- 
ject, while Katsurada based his largely upon that obtained from cats, and 
this distinction, as Stiles insists, must be taken into consideration. 
This being the case, the conclusion is fairly safe that the parasites 
described from Japan and China are of the same species. It also seems 
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