'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎271r] (544/862)

PUBLIC HEALTH AND DISEASE
4 J 7
junctivitis treated in 1939 numbered 314,110. Epidemics of acute
contagious ophthalmia in the towns, caused by the gonococcus, are of
frequent occurrence. The disease is not so virulent as the gonor
rhoeal ophthalmia of England, and if cases are treated early and
vigorously useful sight can usually be retained. If left untreated, or
treated by the local method of instilling milk and sugar into the eyes
and then sealing the eyes with a poultice of cow-dung, blindness is
almost inevitable. A blind child is a useless member of society in
Iraq and generally soon dies from some intercurrent disease.
Cataract is not as common in Iraq as in India.
Schistosomiasis
This is an infection of human beings with a trematode worm,
Schistosoma haematobium being the species responsible for the disease
in Iraq. The worm is small—the female is. only 20 mm. long and the
male little more than half that length—and is generally found in the
tissue of the urinary bladder. The eggs of the worm which are ex
creted with the host’s urine contain ciliated embryos called miracidia.
These after a complex life-history dependent upon access to water
containing a fresh-water snail, Bulinus truncatus, escape in a develop
mental form {cercariae) from the snail into the water, and can
penetrate the skin of man. They then proceed to the bladder of the
host, where they reach maturity in about six weeks.
Urinary schistosomiasis is extremely prevalent throughout Iraq.
Boulenger (1919) reported that in both Tigris and Euphrates districts
about one-fifth of the male Arabs examined were infected. Hall (1925)
found schistosomiasis to be exceedingly prevalent on the banks of the
Euphrates from Hindiya to the sea, particularly in rice-field areas. In
Diwaniya four-fifths of the population and in Basra 334 out of 711
schoolchildren were infected. Mohammedan children were more
prone than young Christians and Jews, because they bathe and wash
more. Outbreaks have occurred among British troops from bathing
in infected pools.
In most cases of this disease the victim suffers little if at all. The
passage of blood-stained urine appears to be regarded as a normal
event by most Iraqis. Sometimes, however, most painful and distress
ing symptoms may result, and the sufferers then find their way to
hospitals and dispensaries.
A comprehensive study of Schistosoma haematobium and its life-
cycle in Iraq by Mills, Machattie, and Chadwick was published in
1936. They found that Bulinus truncatus was the mollusc responsible