CERTAIN DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF ASCARIS 



LUMBRICOIDES OVA IN THE LIVER TISSUE 



By C. Monserrat and C. Africa 



Of the Departments of Pathology and Bacteriology and of Parasitology 



and Tropical Medicine, College of Medicine and Surgery, 



University of the Philippines 



The eggs studied in the present paper were observed by one 

 of the authors of this article while examining a histological 

 section of the liver of a child, 3 years old, who died of tuber- 

 culous meningitis. These ova are of particular interest, not only 

 because of their peculiar location in the host body, but also be- 

 cause they seem to be at variance with the common belief that 

 ascaris eggs are capable of segmenting only after they have 

 passed out of the body of the host. 



History of the case.— The patient was a poorly nourished, 

 emaciated, highly irritable, female Filipino child, 3 years old. 

 She was living with her grandmother who had pulmonary tuber- 

 culosis. The patient was admitted into the hospital with symp- 

 toms of meningitis after having been sick for nine days outside. 

 When she was one and a half years old she had fever and chill 

 occasionally for four months, oftentimes associated with abdo- 

 minal pains, tympanism, and vomiting. Nine months later the 

 child passed several ascarides, and since then repeatedly passed 

 the same kind of worm, either per mouth or per rectum. About 

 one week previous to admission she vomited one large ascaris. 

 There was no history of colic or jaundice, nor was there any men- 

 tion of passage of worms during her stay in the hospital. In 

 this institution a lumbar puncture was performed and about 10 

 cubic centimeters of clear fluid with some white flocculent pre- 

 cipitate were obtained under low pressure. The spinal fluid was 

 negative for tubercle bacilli, and the number of cells was 5 per 

 cubic millimeter. The proportion of lymphocytes was 80 per 

 cent, of neutrophils 20 per cent. 



The child died nine days after admission, after having pre- 

 sented a dramatic aspect of generalized convulsions, with twitch- 

 ing of the muscles of the face, distended and tympanitic abdo- 



