Toxocaral Visceral Larva Migrans

Abstract

CERTAIN parasitic helminths of lower animals are capable of infecting a variety of mammalian species that are not their definitive hosts. Under such conditions the invading larvae usually do not develop further but may survive indefinitely in the tissues. If these animals form part of the food chain of the definitive host, the parasite's life cycle is eventually completed. When human beings are accidentally infected with these worms, severe, irreversible or even fatal damage may result. Although several scientists speculated previously that man could be infected by these parasites, it was not until 1952 that larvae of Toxocara canis, . . .