PARASITIC PROTOZOA IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 



By H. B. Fantham. M.A.. D.Sc, F.Z.S., 

 Professor of Zoology, University College, Johannesburg. 



(With 23 Text- figures.) 



Filth, famine, and disease follow in the wake of war. These 

 three inimical agencies in previous wars have, proportionately, 

 taken heavier tolls of life than in the present war, owing both to 

 the measures taken to ensure greater general cleanliness, to pre- 

 ventive inoculation, and to the great strides in the exact diagnosis 

 of many maladies that previously were confused, the result being 

 more appropriate and rapid treatment. 



Wherever large bodies of men are massed together on ground 

 that has been or is being fought over, unsanitary conditions arise. 



These conditions may be due to the inevitable paucity or lack 

 of conveniences for cleanliness, or may result from the action of 

 the guns in turning up old graveyards, cesspits and the like, and 

 by forming craters, some deep, some shallow, wherein the 

 breeding of insects transmitting certain diseases can go on almost 

 without limitation. Many of the epidemic diseases that may arise 

 among the military forces can be roughly classified as intestinal 

 and blood maladies, and the actual causal agents are mostly 

 minute, bacteria and protozoa being among the chief. 



Intestinal ailments have been prevalent in certain war zones, 

 especially those in or near the tropics. Preventive inoculations 

 against typhoid, paratyphoid A, paratyphoid B. and cholera have 

 had marked success in reducing the number of cases of such 

 diseases almost to a minimum. The various dysenteries and diar- 

 rhoeas, however, have caused much trouble. Some of these tnala- 

 dies have been due to the .Shiga and Flexner bacilli. Others have 

 been caused by Protozoa, including Entauia^ha, histolytica, the 

 agent of amoebic dysentery ; various flagellate Protozoa, such as 

 Giardia (Lamblia) intestinalis, Chilomastix (Telramitus) mesnili, 

 Trichouionas honiinis, Cercomonas hominis, and C. parva; sporo- 

 zoan parasites, such as Isospora bigemina and Eimeria stiedce; 

 and Ciliata, such as Balantidium coli. 



The protozoal parasites of the blood include the causal agents 

 of human malaria and relapsing fever, as well as trypanosomes 

 that produce sleeping sickness in man and nagana in animals. 



As this paper was read before a joint meeting of all the 

 sections of the Association, the various technical terms are 

 reduced to a minimum, and brief explanations are given of most 

 of those used. 



Intestinal Protozoa. 



During the war, I have personally examined many thousands 

 of diarrhoeic and dysenteric stools from soldiers who contracted 

 disease in Egypt, Gallipoli, Salonika, Mesopotamia, West Africa, 

 Fast Africa, and Flanders. In the dysenteries of protozoal origin, 



