F. buski is found in China, Assam and India. It is a parasite of hogs as well as man. The eggs measure from 80 to 120 microns, are nearly colorless and have a thin shell with a very small operculum.
The symptoms are chiefly those of a chronic diarrhoea followed by anaemia and wasting. The stool is light yellow in color, exceedingly offensive and does not contain blood. Goddard thinks that they live in the upper part of the small intestines.
The life history is unknown but Goddard states that fresh water snails are much eaten by the people of Shaohing. Nakagawa notes that the eggs of Fasciolopsis hatch in two to three weeks. The miracidia penetrate various species of snails in which the cercariae may encyst and infect pigs eating such snails. The cercariae may also leave the snail and encyst on blades of grass, to later infect an animal feeding on the grass, this latter method of infection resembling that of Fasciola hepatica.
Noc has reported success with treatment with thymol and Goddard with beta-naphthol.
Other intestinal flukes such as Cladorchis watsoni, Gastrodiscus hominis, Heterophyes heterophyes, and Fascioletta ilocana are of less importance. Heterophyes is probably a rather common parasite but owing to its very small size (2 mm.) has been generally overlooked at autopsy.
Strongyloides Stercoralis
It was formerly supposed that a chronic form of diarrhoea in Cochin China was due to an infection with the parthenogenetic female of Strongyloides stercoralis. It is now known that the parasite is widely distributed over the tropical and subtropical world and that it rarely gives rise to manifest symptoms although some observers regard it as capable of producing diarrhoea and more or less anaemia.
Fig. 118.—Ovum of Fasciolopsis buski. Bell and Sutton. (Jefferys and Maxwell.)
