PROTOZOAN PARASITES OF MONKEYS AND MAN 



z 35 



settle the question of specificity of either 

 parasite or host. 



The literature contains two records of 

 Embadomonas in monkeys. Fonseca (1917) 

 describes specimens from a South American 

 monkey, Cebus caraya, "which he considers 

 a new species, E. ivenyoni, on the basis of 

 differences in the type of division between 

 it and the human form, E. intestinalis; that 

 it is a new species seems very doubtful. 

 The second reference is that of Kessel 

 (1917) who found Embadomonas in Macacus 

 monkeys in China and cultivated them 

 in vitro. 



Balantidium coli, and are possibly the same 

 as that in the guinea-pig (Scott, 192.7). 

 Two species and one variety of Troglodytella 

 have been given names; T. abrassarti and 

 T. abrassarti acuminata occur in chim- 

 panzees (Brumpt and Joyeux, 191X; Reiche- 

 now, 1917, 19x0a), and T. gorillae in the 

 gorilla (Reichenow, 19x0a). 



Balantidium coli is a particularly interest- 

 ing protozoon because its host-parasite 

 specificity seems to be very weak. Ap- 

 parently human beings acquire infection 

 by ingesting cysts from pigs, a large 



Fin. to. Balantidium sp. Active, Trophozoite 



Stage of Ciliate from a Monkey (X 12.00) 



(After Hegner and Holmes) 



Enteromonas is mentioned by Dobell 

 (19x6) as one of the intestinal flagellates 

 that he found and cultivated from Macacus 

 monkeys, but no description , of the 

 organism is given. 



INTESTINAL CILIATES OP MONKEYS AND MAN 



The only ciliate that is known with 

 certainty to occur in man is Balantidium 

 coli. Two genera of ciliates are intestinal 

 inhabitants of monkeys, Balantidium (fig. 

 10) and Troglodytella (fig. 11). The 

 balantidia are supposed to belong to the 

 same species as that in man and pig, 



Fig. 11. Troglodytella abrassarti acuminata. 



Active, Trophozoite Stage of a Ciliate 



from a Chimpanzee (X2-50) 



(After Reichenow) 



proportion of which are parasitized. 

 Pigs have been infected with balantidia 

 from monkeys (Brumpt, 1909a); and 

 monkeys have been infected with cysts or 

 trophozoites or both from man or pig 

 when fed to them or injected per rectum 

 (Walker, 191 3). Two attempts made by 

 Ziemann (19x5) to infect himself by 

 swallowing balantidia from chimpanzees 

 were unsuccessful. Scott (19x7) has been 

 unable to find any differences of specific 

 rank between the balantidia of guinea- 

 pigs and those of pig and man. 





