Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2009
The experiments here described make provision for some of the eventualities not covered by the previous experiments of Taylor and Purchase, and appear to give a more definite answer to the question on the effect of the presence of parasitic worms in aiding the entry of bacteria into the body.
Although the conditions, in these experiments, appear to have been very favourable for the bacteria present in the lumen of the bowel to invade the host through abrasions of the wall caused by the parasitic worms, the evidence of assistance given by the worms to the entry of bacteria has not been obtained. In view of these findings, and taking into consideration other experimental results, it seems highly probable that the injuries caused to the bowel wall by parasitic worms in general do not play any important part in bringing about bacterial infection from the lumen of the intestine.