An investigation of parasitic helminths of stray dogs in Bangkok.

Among the dog parasite, there are several common species to human parasites , such as gnathostome, trematodes, some cestodes, etc.. The prevalence of such dog parasites has the important meanings for the incidence of human parasites too. Some larval forms of dog parasites, such as dog ascaris or dog hook worm , according to Beaver ( 1956) et al., enter man , causing some serious diseases of larval migrans. So the epidemiologic survey of dog parasites is very useful for the establishment of eradicational schedule on such human parasites. At the time of experimental work on hook worm, whipworm , or many other parasites, the collection of living materials from the dog is much easier than that from man, even though there are slight differences between dog parasites and human parasites. So the faunistic knowledge of dog parasites in some area is of benefit to carry out such experiments. Moreover it is possible to get some analogy between the dog and man concerning the parasitic phenomena of each parasite . From the viewpoint of veterinary , there are several serious diseases caused by dog helminths, such as hook worm , filaria, gnathostoma, spirocerca, or another trematodes and cestodes. So it is important to examine the incidence of such dog parasites for the control of dog diseases . Up to the present time, no data have been reported on the dog parasite in Bangkok , though there are many stray dogs in the city. For the above mentioned reasons and also by the academic interest, one hundred stray dogs in Bangkok were autopsied to examine their parasitic helminths in 1960 and 1961. The obtained data were compared and discussed with that reported by Ito et al . (1958) in Japan.