The combined use of complement fixation (CF) and latex agglutination (LA) tests is reported on sera from 6328 patients with suspected hydatid disease; 191 were confirmed positive at operation (‘known positives’). Results by LA are related to CF titres.

Both tests were negative in 90% of specimens. Nine patients were subsequently found infected of whom 3 became positive in tests after operation.

Of sera positive in both tests, 75% were from ‘known positives’. The remainder were almost certainly from infected patients.

Half the patients whose sera were La positive/CF⋜¼ were follow-up ‘known positives’ in whom CF titres had waned; 2 were early infections.

Only 3% of the cases with an LA negative/CF titre of ⋝1/16 were ‘known positives’ and 6% where the CF titre was 1/8. The remaining CF results in the group were false positives and accounted for 1.2% of all sera tested. Findings show that a CF titre ⋝1/8 with positive LA indicates past or present infection; a negative CF test with positive LA usually indicates past infection; rarely, infection is present when a CF titre is ⋝1/8 and LA is negative. A rising CF titre and positive LA indicates current infection; reliable prognosis following treatment is given by CF.

Sixty-one serum samples selected on the basis of reactivity in the complement fixation (CF) and latex agglutination (LA) test, were further examined for sensitivity and specificity by indirect haemagglutination (IHA), enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and defined antigen substrate spheres (DASS). Twenty sera from healthy Europeans and 48 samples from patients with either schistosomiasis or trichinosis were also tested. Comparable levels of sensitivity were found between the CF and LA positive sera and IHA, ELISA and DASS. Of the CF positive LA negative group of sera, many were positive by DASS but only a few reacted in IHA and ELISA. Some cross reactivity was also observed in the schistosomiasis sera tested by IHA and ELISA.

22 antigenic components of Taenia saginata proglottides were detected by immunoelectrophoretic (IEP) study. Cross-absorption of the Hyperimmune serum, raised in rabbits against T. saginata, with heterologous and host antigens showed that two thirds of these components were not specific for the cestode. Among the calves experimentally infected with T. saginata eggs, 3 precipitation patterns in IEP were identified depending on the evolutionary stage of the infection. The hydrosoluable extract of T. Saginata was used as antigen. A short precipitating arc present near the antigen well and appearing 3 to 4 weeks post-infection of the calves and a long precipitating arc extending towards the anodic end of the slide and appearing in later stages of infection were found of high diagnostic value. No false-positive reaction or cross-reaction were found. Among the calves harbouring less than 50 cysticerci, false-negative reactions were seen.

Moaciria chondropythonis sp. n., from cysts in the wall of the oesophageal/stomach junction of Chondropython viridis originally from New Guinea but kept in captivity at the Zoological Society of London for three months is described and figured. It is distinguished from the other species of the genus by the number and arrangement of the caudal papillae and by its larger size.

Xenopodistomum xenopodis Macnae, Rock and Makowski, 1973 was recovered from the gall bladder of Xenopus laevis laevis imported from the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, during 1967 – 1978. The overall incidence amongst 396 toads was 2.8%, and while the maximum intensity was 8 worms per host, most carried single infections. The parasite was not represented in 570 specimens of 8 other Xenopus taxa from East, Central and West Africa. The internal anatomy of X. xenopodis is of a plagiorchild type, but the adult body form is unusual with marked division into a slender very extensible neck and a broad oval hindbody. Although apparently confined within the gall bladder, the parasite can extend its neck along the bile duct and into the duodenum: host gut contents or intestinal epithelium may therefore supplement the diet of bile fluid. The original description and generic diagnosis have been amplified and amended. X. xenopodis apparently lacks close affinities with other known genera, a characteristic common to many of the parasites which infect the clawed toads.

Goezia lacerticola sp. n. infects the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, in Florida. The stomach ascaridoid is characterized by possessing 28 – 32 pairs of caudal papillae of which 4 are postcloacal, 2 are paracloacal, and the rest are precloacal; a body length of 3.9 – 8.2 mm, spicules 8 – 16% of the body length; and a length-ratio of the intestinal caecum to ventricular appendage of 1:2.1 – 4.6 mm. Its ventricular appendage consists of two longitudinal compartments.

The compatibility between strains of Schistosoma mansoni from Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, the West Indies, and Zaire (two strains which came from Katanga and from Kinshasa), and various species and strains of Biomphalaria, i.e., Biomphalaria pfeifferi, B. alexandrina, B. glabrata and B. camerunensis was investigated. Data as mortality, rate of infection of the surviving snails, duration of infection, cercarial production per day per positive snail, etc., were observed. The main emphasis was placed on determining the total cercarial production per 100 exposed snails for each snail population.

It was possible to infect all the tested populations of B. pfeifferi with the various strains of S. mansoni, but the observation as e.g. TCP/100 exposed snails varied greatly according to the population of snail and the strain of S. mansoni. The results for the remaining species of Biomphalaria varied greatly, depending on the combination, e.g. B. alexandrina was only susceptible to the local S. mansoni from Egypt.

The highest TCP/100 exposed snails was more than 1 million for the strains of S. mansoni from Egypt, Kenya and the West Indies in B. alexandrina, B. pfeifferi and B. glabrata, respectively. The next group, with a TCP/100 exposed snails on 7 – 800 000 consists of S. mansoni from Sudan, Uganda and Zaire (Katanga) all in B. pfeifferi. The last tested strain of S. mansoni, Zaire (Kinshasa) yielded a cercarial production on 500 000 per 100 exposed snails in B. pfeifferi and B. camerunensis.

The shortest prepatent period, 19 days, was observed for S. mansoni from Kinshasa, Zaire, in B. camerunensis, and the longest prepatent period, 25 days, was found for strains from Egypt and from the West Indies in B. alexandrina and B. glabrata, respectively.

In general, a very long duration of infection, lasting up to 200 days, was observed.

Schistosoma bovis from Morocco was used in infection experiments with several populations of Bulinus truncatus. The snails from Libya, Malawi, Morocco and Senegal were very compatible with the schistosome since the infection rates were approximately 90%, the mortality was low, and a very high production of cercariae, approximately 1.2 million per 100 exposed snails, was observed. Only a very few B. truncatus (2n = 36) from Rhodesia became infected. B. permembranaceus and B. forskalii were refractory.

Asymphylodora fishelsoni sp. n. is described from the cyprinodontid fish, Aphanius dispar richardsoni, an endemic subspecies from a brackish water spring flowing into the Dead Sea at Ein Fashkha, Israel. The new species is closest to A. carpiae Szidat, 1943, but differs significantly in being less than half its size, and in having the vesicular pars prostatica in the form of a distinct chamber, the caeca always inflated (rather than narrow), the seminal vesicle entirely postacetabular (rather than overlapping the acetabulum) and occupying 40 – 48% of the cirrus sac length (rather than 80%), the cirrus overlapping the acetabulum (rather than being entirely sinistral to it) and occupying 44 – 50% of the cirrus sac length (rather than 18%), and the anterior part of the terminal organ representing 35 – 54% of the total length of this organ (rather than 22%). Positive allometric growth is shown by the hindbody, posttesticular body, and gonads, whereas the forebody, suckers, and pharynx are negative.

Species of Cloacina Linstow, 1898 (Nematoda: Strongyloidea) are reported and/or described from the stomach of the macropodid marsupial Wallabia bicolor (Desmarest, 1804) collected in eastern Australia. Nematodes were examined from 26 hosts collected in 3 states and the number of species of Cloacina in any one host was 2 – 7. The following species were encountered: C. wallabiae Johnston and Mawson, 1939, C. gallardi Johnston and Mawson, 1940, C. edwardsi Mawson, 1972 and C. cornuta (Davey and Wood, 1938) the last named constituting a new host record. The following new species are described: C. mawsonae sp. nov., C. papillata sp. nov., C. annulata sp. nov., C. castor sp. nov. and C. pollux sp. nov.