Chinese Medical Journal

24 _ THE CHINESE MEDICAL JOURNAL

used alone has little or no anthelmintic effect. It may be said therefore that the combined use of pumpkin seed and areca nut has greater curative effect.

3. Repetition of treatment. Some of the patients who were not cured returned for further treatment. Eleven cases of T. saginata infection were subjected to the combined use of pumpkin seeds and areca nuts in the re-treatment. Five of these cases were of the pumpkin seed series and, of these, 4 cases were cured after one treatment and 1 case after two treatments. Three cases were of the pumpkin seed oil and areca nut series and all were cured after one treatment. Of the remaining 3 cases which ' were not cured in the pumpkin seed and areca nut series, 2 cases were cured after one more treatment and 1 was cured after two more treatments.

None of the patients with T. solium infection who returned for further treatment were given the combination of pumpkin seeds and areca nuts. ‘Two patients who were not cured with pumpkin seeds were treated with areca nuts; 1 was finally cured after two treatments and the other, who was not cured after one treatment, failed to return.

_ There were also 4 unsuccessful cases after one treatment with pumpkin seeds and areca nut (oil-free pumpkin seed powder in 3 cases, whole pumpkin seed powder in 1 case). The patients in 3 of these cases vomited soon after taking the areca nut, and naturally no therapeutic effect could _ be expected. The patient in the remaining case had not the slightest movement in the abdomen several hours after the anthelmintic and purgative, and he had also no purgation after returning home and no worm passed out. No re-treatment was given in these cases.

4. illustrative cases. Among our cases of T. saginata infection about a half had been previously treated elsewhere. Some patients had taken areca nut decoction prepared by themselves, some had taken anthelmintic drugs purchased from worm specialists or drugstores, and some had been treated at outpatient clinics or hospitals. As regards the degree of infection, most of our patients had 1 worm, some had 2 or 3 worms, and there were 3 patients who had respectively 50, 6 and 14 worms. There was no relationship between the number of worms harbored and easiness or difficulty in the treatment of any case.

Brief histories of 4 cases treated with the combined use of areca nut and pumpkin seeds are here reported. Of these, 3 had been unsuccessfully treated several times elsewhere, and 1 had as many as 14 tapeworms.

CasE 1. MHstieh, male, aged 36 years, a case of T. saginata infection. He had been infected for more than ten years and had taken anthelmintics purchased from a worm specialist in 1948 and 1949 without success. Between August and December 1954, he was treated three times, twice in a hospital with areca nut and once at home with areca nut and pomegranate fruit peels, all without avail. On February 25, 1955, he came to us for treatment. He received 50 gm of whole kernel pumpkin seed powder at 8:40 a.m., followed by a tannin-free decoction of

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