INFECTIONS WITH COCCIDIUM AND ISOSPORA IN ANIMALS 



IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS AND THEIR POSSIBLE 



CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE x 



By Frank G. Haughwout 



(From the Department of Medical Zoology, College of Medicine and Surgery, 

 University of the Philippines) 



FIVE TEXT FIGURES 



The recent discovery in Manila of several species of Sporozoa, 

 presumably belonging to the order Coccidiida, which have been 

 found infesting animals of common species, brings us face to 

 face with the possibility of human coccidial infections, and the 

 purpose of this paper is to present a few of the facts regarding 

 these infections for the information of physicians who may en- 

 counter such conditions in their practice. So far as I have 

 knowledge, no case of human coccidiosis has been reported in 

 the Philippine Islands, but conditions supervening upon the war 

 have led to the discovery in other parts of the world of many 

 cases of undoubted coccidial infection, and these cases, taken in 

 conjunction with older but less exact reports of similar infec- 

 tions, justify us in the belief that coccidiosis of man may in time 

 to come be looked upon as a definite clinical entity and a con- 

 dition that may crop up at almost any time or place. 



In introducing the subject it seems desirable to make it clear 

 just what is meant by coccidia. This term is rather loosely 

 employed to describe a group of Sporozoa that are intra- 

 cellular parasites, having an asexual cycle within epithelial 

 cells where reproduction takes place by the process known as 

 schizogony, and a succeeding sexual process involving the union 

 of sexually differentiated gametes and spore formation within a 

 cyst. In a general way the life cycles correspond to the clas- 

 sical cycle worked out by Schaudinn in the case of Coccidium 

 schubergi. But it must be borne in mind that the terms "coc- 

 cidium" and "coccidia" are frequently used in a rather loose 

 and general way, and all organisms spoken of as "coccidia" are 

 not necessarily of the genus Coccidium. The genus Coccidium 

 is only one of a large number of genera grouped under the 

 order Coccidiida. This order is broken up into four families 



1 Read before the Manila Medical Society, November 5, 1917. Received 

 for publication October, 1917. 



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