I 
OBSERVATIONS ON BILHARZIASIS AMONGST THE 
EGYPTIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE. 
By PHILIP MANSON-BAHR, D.S.O., M.D., M.R.C.P., 
D.T.M. and H. (Camb.). 
Brevet-Major, R.A.M.C., Lecturer London School of Tropical Medicine, 
and Assistant Physician, Albert Dock Hospital, E. 
AND 
N. HAMILTON FAIRLEY, O.B.E., M.D., Lt-Colonel A.A.M.C. 
Pathologist, Walter and Eli^a Hall Institute of Research, Melbourne, late 
Pathologist 14th Australian General Hospital, and Lecturer on 
Parasitology Egyptian University. 
(With Plates III-V and 3 Text-figures.) 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
I. Historical .......... 33 
II. Scope of the present investigation ...... 35 
III. The morphology and life cycle of the two species of Egyptian Scbisto- 
somidae (Schistosomum haematobium , Rilh. v. Sieb. 1852, and 
Schistosomum mansoni, Sambon, 1907) ..... 3() 
IV. Observations on certain Molluscan Intermediaries, especially relat¬ 
ing to those of Egyptian Bilharziasis ..... 49 
V. Concerning investigations of the Sweet-water Canal to which infec¬ 
tion amongst Australian and Imperial troops was traced, and the 
conclusions based upon them ...... 57 
VI. The incidence and origin of Bilharzial infection amongst the 
Cairenes . . . . . . . ... 01 
VII. Suggestions for Prophylaxis ....... 63 
I. HISTORICAL. 
In 1851, Bilharz (1852) first discovered paired adult trematode worms originally 
named after him in the portal system of an Egyptian fellah. Subsequently, in¬ 
vestigations of the deposits of ova in excreta were made, but numerous attempts 
by Cobbold, Sonsino, Lortet and Vialleton (1894) and others, to unravel the life 
history of the parasite, failed. Looss (1896), appreciating that the digenetic tre- 
matodes must necessarily pass through a molluscan intermediary, dissected 
many species of snails collected from the fresh-water canals around Cairo. 
He failed to find the cercariae of bilharzia, and discarded the hypothesis of an 
intermediate molluscan host. As, however, the miracidium of Schistosomum 
Parasitology xn 
3 
