DRACONTIASIS 



1969 



Fedschenko's observations were confirmed by Manson, Blanchard, 

 and by Wenyon working in the Sudan. The Cyclops swallow these 

 embryo worms as food, and Indian observers have noted that the 

 worms are at first coiled up in the stomach, but later they pierce 

 the wall of this organ and escape into the body cavity, and may 

 kill the Cyclops. In the body cavity they shed their cuticle about 

 the seventh day and undergo developmental changes, and will 

 remain alive in this cavity for some fifty-three days. 



In 1907 Leiper proved that the infection of man was per os, the 

 Cyclops being swallowed in water. In the stomach the crustacean 

 is killed, but the wormx escapes through the digested integument of 

 the cyclops,boresitsway through the wall of the vertebrate stomach, 

 and in about eight to twelve months becomes the adult female, 



Fig. 788A. — Guinea Worm somewhat shrivelled from Action of Pre- 

 serving Fluids. (Half Natural Size.) 



measuring some 30 inches, but during this process she moves about 

 and finally produces the blister, where water can be touched, and 

 so gets her young into water. 



In 1913 Turkhud extended our knowledge considerably, and has 

 shown that a man who drank water containing infected cyclops on 

 April 5, 1913, showed the worm on March 18, 1914 — i.e., 348 days 

 later. He also demonstrated that the worm would not develop in 

 Macacus sinicus. 



Whether there is more than one kind of guinea-worm is not known, 

 but Scheube says that Cholokowski has described an unclassified 

 filaria, several inches in length, which causes ulceration of the fingers, 

 and evengangrene, in Tiver, in Russia, which may or may not be the 

 same worm. 



