4 Beport of the Bilharzia Mission in Egypt, 1915 



the disease is contracted and propagated. Unfortunately, although 

 the parasitic nature of the disease had been established in 1851 

 nothing definite had yet been discovered of the Hfe-cycle of the 

 parasite or its manner of entering the human body. Early writers 

 had supposed that the bilharzia worm, like other trematodes, 

 required to undergo a metamorphosis in a mollnscan intermediary 

 before it became capable of infecting another person. In 1894, 

 however, Looss formulated the hypothesis that the disease is 

 communicable directly from man to man. In submission to his 

 great authority in helminthological matters and his skill in dia- 

 lectics, practically all research on the transmission of African 

 bilharziosis undertaken during the last twenty years has been 

 directed to the experimental verification of this hypothesis. During 

 1914 the author was in charge of the first Wandsworth Expedition 

 of the London Scliool of Tropical Medicine investigating the mode 

 of spread of trematode infections of man in the Far East. Kesults 

 which threw discredit upon the Looss hypothesis had just been 

 acquired when the outbreak of war rendered field work impossible 

 and necessitated an early return. The new facts were communi- 

 cated to the War Office, and approval was given for the author to 

 proceed to Egypt " to investigate bilharzia disease in that country 

 and advise as to the preventive measures to be adopted m con- 

 nection with the troops." ])rs. R. P. Cockin and J. G. Thomson 

 were associated with the author in the inquiry, and Private W. 

 McDonald was transferred from the Sixth Essex (T.), as laboratory 

 assistant. 



The Committee of the London School of Tropical Medicine 

 granted permission to all three members of their staff, while 

 retaining their appointments, to accept temporary commissions 

 for the period of the investigations. The requisite scientific 

 apparatus was furnished by the School Committee. The Medical 

 Research Committee (Insurance Act) allocated a special fund for 

 all necessary field and other expenses incidental to the research. 

 The Mission arrived in Egypt on Februarv 8 and left again on 

 July 1"). 



Historical. 



Evidence of the occurrence of bilharzial disease in Egypt in 

 ancient times has been found in early l^gyptian records [3«8] and in 

 the bodies of mummies now in the Cairo Museum [416J. In his 

 Memoirs, Larrey [2(34 notes that symptonjs of the disease were 



