Contribution of the Regional Laboratory of Santos in the epidemiology of mansoni schistosomiasis in Santos

Abstract

In this paper, the author makes a report about the Schistosomiasis mansoni in Santos; State of São Paulo and enumerates the works which were realized by the "Laboratório Regional de Santos" referring to the epidemiology of the disease in this city. He relates how the focuses of the disease in the districts of Saboó and Jabaquara were discovered and how the extension of this helminthose was effected through the districts of Macuco and Ponta da Praia. The author denounces the danger that, for the dissemination of the Schistosomiasis mansoni, represents the stream of immigrants formed by workmen and laborers coming from zones and states largely attained by these parasites (North-East, Sergipe, Alagoas, Bahia and Minas Gerais). Those immigrants accept jobs as servants or guards in constructions and live at the place of their work, where there is generally no sanitary installation. Consequently, their dejections are thrown to the ground or into the most precarious pits which are connected with drains where suitable species of snails infested by the parasite are abundant. The author shows what a commission, named for the study and the fight against the Schistosomiasis, realized and the results obtained with coprological inquiries made among students. He also describes the methods used in coprological tests and analyses the means which were employed for the diagnose of this disease.