CLONORCHIASIS SINENSIS: CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS AND DIAGNOSIS

CHINESE medicine has had many lessons for Western observers,1 some of the most interesting having been in the various parasitic diseases. Dur-ing the last several years a number of papers have appeared, particularly in the foreign literature, regarding the diagnosis and therapy of human clo-norchiasis. The purpose here will be to clarify the clinical picture as seen in two large teaching hospitals in this country, and to discuss the newer diagnostic technics. Endemic areas of heavy human infestation are Japan, Tonkin Indo-China and the Kwongtong Province of South China.2'3 The incidence of human infestation has been estimated to be as high as 80 % in Canton, China, with a total world incidence of 19,000,000.3 Other endemic areas are Formosa and South Korea. The life cycle was first delineated in 1927.4 Ova-laden feces shed in fresh water pass through the stage of ciliated miracidia. After molluscan ingestion by an appropriate snail, the trematode successively passes through