On the Discovery and Prevalence of Schistosoma Spindale (montgomery, 1906) in Thailand.

Schistosoma spindale (Montgomery, 1906) has never been reported in Thailand, since this worm was discovered by Montgomery (1906) in two plain cattle (Bos indices) at Muktesar in India. Liston and Soparkar (1918) completed its life cycle in the goat infected with one kind of furcocercous cercariae obtained from a fresh water snail, Planorbis exustus (synonym of Indoplanorbis exustus). In 1960 and 1961, the cercarial fauna of fresh water snails in Thailand was surveyed by the authors at the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Public Health in Bangkok. During that time, as reported by Ito et al. (1962), it was revealed that a fresh water snail, Indoplanorbis exustus, from north-east provinces of Thailand was heavily infected with one kind of schistosome cercaria. This cercaria was morphologically identical with that of Schistosoma spindale, which have been known as an important blood fluke of cattle, buffalos in India, and as a dermatitis producing cercaria for the inhabitants in Malaya. The first step of our study was focused on getting adult worms by using this cercaria through the experimental infection. After many trials during a two years' period, several adult worms were obtained from experimental animals. The followings are a preliminary report on those experiments and the identification of worms.