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Investigation of Intestinal Parasitic Infections of a Selected Population of Oklahoma City

1. The results of a six months survey of intestinal parasites of 953 individuals on the University of Oklahoma Medical School campus and in the University Hospitals are reported.

2. Single specimens were submitted for examination by 623 hospital patients, 231 medical students, eighty-one food handlers, and eighteen nurses, and concentrations, saline-iodine emulsions, and permanent smears made.

3. Of the total number examined 383, or 40.4 per cent were positive to some kind of protozoan or helminth infection.

4. Helminthes occurred only rarely, and only in the hospital patients, where there was an incidence of 1.28 per cent.

5. It was found that sixty-five, or 6.8 per cent, of the total of 953 examined harbored E. histolytica. The percentage incidence of this parasite was highest in the 623 hospital patients included in this survey, namely 7.7 per cent. The eighty-one food handlers had the next highest incidence, or 7.4 per cent. The eighteen nurses had an incidence of 5.5 per cent and the 231 medical students had an incidence of 4.3 per cent for E. histolytica.

6. There were three acute cases of amebiasis, two of "amebic diarrhea" and one chronic uncovered in this survey. The remainder were symptomless carriers.

7. The various viewpoints as to the meaning of the symptomless carrier condition are discussed. The fact that E. histolytica can produce serious ulcerations with or without symptoms leaves one with little argument for not attempting to rid a patient of this parasite even though we still have modern writers stressing the point that these "carrier conditions" are "lumen-dwellers" and only incidentally tissue invaders.

8. A larger number of carriers than has hitherto been suspected, if we may take this survey as a criteria, exists in the normal population of this State.

9. E. histolytica is as prevalent here as elsewhere in the country.

Received January 11, 1937.
¹ This study was aided by Grants from the Research Fund of the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine.