A Preliminary Report on the Source of the Human 

 Liver Distome, Clonorchis endemicus (Bälz) 

 (=Dislomum stpalhulatum Leuekart). 



{From the Imp. Gov. Institute for Infect. Diseases, Tokio). 



BY 



H. Kobay ashi. 



[With Plate X.). 



There have been many researches concerning the liver distome 

 in Japan and various suggestions have been made as to its mode of 

 infection, e. g. the drinking of raw water, the eating of raw molluscs, 

 etc. The experiments recorded below practically prove the baseless- 

 ness of these suggestions. 



With the hope of elucidating the life history of certain trematodes, 

 I have examined a number of molluscs, fishes and aquatic arthropods for 

 larval stages of this group, and have discovered among others a species of 

 young distome encysted in the muscle of some freshwater fishes. It 

 is found most abundantly in the fishes obtained at Kojo and 

 Sanban, Okayama Prefecture. These villages are known to be the 

 places where liver distomiasis is most prevalent, and I naturally 

 suspected that the distome in question might prove to be the young 

 of the common liver distome, and the experiments on cats described 

 below appear to me to prove the correctness of my supposition. 



It is well known that the cats are often infested by the human liver 

 distome, and therefore this animal was used for the purpose of my 

 experiments. To them was given the flesh of fish which contained the 

 above mentioned encysted distome. They were mostly kittens which 



