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No. 40.

JAMAICA.

EXTRACT FROM SIX-MONTHLY REPORT ON THE WORK CARRIED OUT IN THE GOVERNMENT BACTERIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, SEPTEMBER, 1915—MARCH, 1916.

(Extract.)

(Received in Colonial Office, 22nd May, 1916.)

Pathological Laboratory, Public Hospital,

*

Kingston, Jamaica, 4th April, 1918.

4. Examination of Faces for Helminthiasis.-4,481 stools altogether were examined for ova, a much larger number than that of the previous six months, which was only 1,957. 1,063 of these examinations were in connexion with the first batta- lion of the Jamaica contingent, and the detailed results are given out in a special table* appended to this report.

It will be seen therein that almost seventy per cent. of the men were found to be infected with hookworm, a number which corresponds closely with the average percentage for the whole island; this is what one would expect, as the men were recruited from almost every parish.

The results of the treatment which they were made to undergo are also set forth in the same table, permission to make use of this knowledge having been granted by Colonel Rhodes, the Principal Medical Officer at camp. The men were given 90 grains of thymol in one day, in three doses of 30 grains each, at an hour's interval, the proper precautions as regards diet, recumbent position, and subse- quent purgation being taken. A certain number of those whose stools still con- tained ankylostoma ova after the first treatment were subjected to a second course, and, if not free, again to a third case. Unfortunately the battalion had to leave before the men had all got rid of their parasites.

One cannot help noting from the tables that the results obtained are far from being encouraging, though of course one would prefer to have a much larger number than seventy-two on which to base conclusions as to the effects of more than one course of treatment.

At the request of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police an investigation of the fæces of the recruits on their joining the Police Force was also carried out. Eighty infected men were treated and their stools re-examined week after. Of these fifty-six were now free from ova. a much higher percentage than that of the contingent men. The treatment in this case consisted in the administration of 180 grains of thymol, spread over three days, in doses of 80 grains each day. This method would certainly appear to have been more effective than that adopted at camp.

Dr. Peck's cases at the St. Catherine District Prison also afforded an oppor- tunity of studying the effects of thymol, quaesia, and oil of chenopodium, and establishing a comparison of the respective efficacies of these drugs. Three hundred and forty-eight patients who were known to harbour ankylostoma were given two doses of 30 grains of thymol each, at an interval of two hours, on an empty stomach, preceded and followed by Epsom salts. The resulta correspond fairly closely with those obtained in the case of the contingent recruits. One hundred and nineteen other patients were given six ounces of infusion of quassia (150 grains to one pint of water) under the same conditions as the above. Ninety-four, i.e., almost eighty per cent.. still contained hookworın ova a week after

Twenty more were treated with oil of chenopodium, of which only a small quantity was available at the time, and the ora disappeared from the stools in four- teen cases, i.e., seventy per cent. The number of patients experimented with in this instance is not sufficiently large to allow of any definite opinion being formed, but the potency of Ol. chenopodii is further borne out by the twenty cases from the Kingston Penitentiary, who were given this drug with thymol (either before or after), and the number of negative stools was eighteen, i.e., ninety per cent. It was also noted that chenonodiol has the additional advantage of causing the other comman intestinal helminths that occur in combination with ankylostoma to be expelled at the same time.

*Not printed.

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