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Animal reservoirs of schistosomiasis

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Book cover Parasitic helminths and zoonoses in Africa

Abstract

Schistosomiasis, or bilharzia as it is commonly known, is a disease affecting various mammals, including man and domestic livestock, caused by a parasitic trematode of the genus Schistosoma. The known history of the disease dates back to the 16th century BC. The Ebers papyrus written at that time contains what is thought to be a reference to its treatment or prevention (Pfister 1912). Ruffer (1910) provided evidence of the earliest records of schistosomiasis in Africa, finding characteristic eggs of S. haematobium in mummies dating back to 1250–1000 BC. In 1851 schistosome worms were first recovered from a human body, that being during a post-mortem examination of a patient in Cairo by Theodore Bilharz, who was later responsible for linking infection with these worms to the hematuria in Egyptians passing terminally spined eggs in their urine. Manson (1902) first suggested a possibility of there being more than one species after he had described laterally spined eggs in human faeces in the West Indies. This view was supported by other workers, and in 1907 Sambon designated the laterally spined eggs as Schistosoma mansoni after Sir Patrick Manson. Meanwhile another species, S. japonicum, which does not occur in Africa, was discovered after Katsurada (1904) recovered adult worms from the portal system of a cat. Its life cycle was worked out by Fujinami (1910), Miyagawa (1912, 1913) and by Miyairi and Suzuki (1913). Their work provided the basis for the research carried out by Leiper (1915–1918) and it was Leiper who finally demonstrated the existence of S. haematobium and S. mansoni as two distinct species which had morphologically different adult worms and eggs, different distributions in the definitive hosts and a dependence on snails from different genera as intermediate hosts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swiss Tropical Institute Field Laboratory, Tanzania, USA

    C. N. L. Macpherson

  2. School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

    P. S. Craig

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    C. N. L. Macpherson

  2. School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

    P. S. Craig

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© 1991 C. N. L. Macpherson, P. S. Craig and contributors

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Macpherson, C.N.L., Craig, P.S. (1991). Animal reservoirs of schistosomiasis. In: Macpherson, C.N.L., Craig, P.S. (eds) Parasitic helminths and zoonoses in Africa. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3054-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3054-7_8

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