48 
Philippine Journal of Science 
1920 
before admisison, but not in all. Bearing on this are a few 
cases that came to our attention, where outside physicians had 
ordered heavy doses of santonin that had been administered 
without bringing about the expulsion of any worms, the ex- 
planation being very simple — there were no worms there to 
expel. These cases were all negative for the ova on examina- 
tion by us. In proper hands, santonin is a safe drug, but we 
believe its administration for the purpose of making a thera- 
peutic diagnosis of ascariasis should be discouraged. Except 
for those rare, almost theoretical, cases where male worms only 
might be present, it is exceedingly likely that a laboratory diag- 
nosis could certainly be made in every case. Furthermore, we 
are growing to place less and less reliance on santonin in the 
treatment of ascariasis and recently one of us (F. S. H.) has 
undertaken a study of the action of oil of chenopodium in these 
infections with results that are, so far, quite satisfactory. 
We observed twenty-five cases that gave a history of having 
vomited or passed, or passed and vomited, ascarids before ad- 
mission to the hospital. None of these cases had received an- 
thelminthic treatment, so the occurrence cannot be attributed 
to the action of santonin. All of these cases underwent our 
series of examinations, and eight of them were found to be neg- 
ative for the ova of Ascaris. In other words it would appear 
that eight of the patients had purged themselves of their round- 
Avorm infections. We think it extremely likely, however, that 
they have contracted new infections of Ascaris since then. 
Four of these cases vomited the worms. Of these, two were 
negative and two positive on microscopical examination. 
Sixteen patients passed the worms, and of these, five were 
negative and four positive on microscopical examination. 
Five patients both vomited and passed worms. On micro- 
scopical examination one was negative and four were positive. 
In the hospital eight patients either vomited or passed 
worms. Of the four that vomited them, one was negative for 
the ova on microscopical examination, and one was found neg- 
ative out of the four that passed ascarids. These are the two 
cases that were missed microscopically and diagnosed in the 
ward. Unfortunately, the worms were not saved by the nurse, 
hence we are unable to state that they were males in extenua- 
tion of our failure to diagnose the infections in the laboratory. 
We might add in connection v/ith these eight cases that some of 
the patients had received santonin and calomel, so that the ex- 
