Gnathostome Infection of the Eye

Full-grown adults or immature worms (larvae) of the genus Gnathostoma (Nematoda) have been recorded in man since 1889, and up to 1934, twenty-one cases were published including the two cases from Bengal reported by Maplestone (1929) and by Datta and Maplestone (1930). These twenty-one cases have been listed by Prommas and Daengsvang (1934) in this journal. The third case from Bengal was reported by Maplestone (1932), and in the last ten years, three more cases of human gnathostomiasis have been recorded?two from Bengal by Maplestone and Bhaduri (1937), and Maplestone and Rao (1939), and one from Siam by Daengsvang (1939). No further case report appears to have been published since 1939; the present case constitues, therefore, the sixth one from Bengal, and incidentally the first one in which the worm has been found in the eye. It is also interesting that Bengal is the only province in India, in which human gnathostomiasis has been found to occur up till now. In the previous cases, the worms were found in various places?cutaneous nodes, superficial tumours, breast abscesses; in three instances they were coughed out along with blood; in one instance, the worm escaped from the inner side of the cheek. In the second case from Bengal (Datta and Maplestone, 1930), it was found in the mastoid region, while in the third case (Maplestone, 1932), it escaped from the right eyebrow causing severe inflammation of the neighbouring parts. In one instance (Daengs-