Dog Roundworm Found In Dead Girls Liver

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 16

Dog Roundworm Found In Dead Girls Liver

A small Auckland girl died after infestation by Toxocara canis, a common roundworm of puppies, says Dr. D. M. O. Becroft in the “New Zealand Medical Journal.” Toxocara canis is not eliminated by hydatids dosing, and there should be regular treatment of dogs for this species of worm, especially where puppies share an environment with young children. Dr. Becroft says. The normal means by which children become infested is, apparently, through eating

dirt containing infested dog droppings, he says. When infested droppings are picked up by another dog, roundworm larvae migrate from the intestine to the lungs and thence back to the intestine, where they mature to adult roundworms. When the larvae are eaten by a child, they may migrate from the intestine but do not complete the cycle. They travel through various parts of the body, particularly the lungs, eyes, and brain, leaving a trail of destruction which will normally heal satisfactorily but which may cause permanent damage. In the Auckland case, where a 15-month-old child, taken suddenly ill, died soon after admission to the Princess Mary Hospital for Children, the cause of death was an acute myocarditis (inflammation of the myocardium of the heart) complicated by pneumonia. Lesions, one of them containing a Toxocara canis roundworm larva, were found in the liver. Dr. Becroft considered the roundworm infestation and the other conditions could be coincidental, but the myocarditis could also be a sensitivity reaction to the infestation or could have been caused by a virus associated with the roundworms.