Heinz Mehlhorn

Christina Strube

This book presents the latest information on canine parasites with zoonotic potential, to help avoid human infections. Compiled by international specialists, it covers protozoa, ectoparasites and helminth species of clinical importance in dogs, as well as the state of the art in diagnosis, preventive measures and potentially necessary treatment schemes. Dogs are commonly kept in families around the world and can predispose their human companions to disease. Updating and deepening insights from other specialist literature, the book is intended for practitioners and scientists alike. It also offers practical guidance for veterinary and human physicians and highlights unexplored research areas, making it a valuable resource for students and educated non-experts with an interest in parasitology, infectiology and zoonotic pet diseases.

Dog Parasites Endangering Human Health

Thomas Kuhn

Sven Klimpel

The Southern Oceans including Antarctic regions are peculiar and very sensitive water biotopes, where animal life and species interrelations are only poorly investigated. Especially the influence of parasites on their host species needs intensive consideration in times of global warming and worldwide pollution. Both factors may influence the finely balanced interrelationships between parasites and endangered hosts especially in specialized regions such as Antarctica. Before this background the present book offers a broad spectrum of important parasite-host interrelations in times of ecosystem changes written by experienced and renown international specialists.

Biodiversity and Evolution of Parasitic Life in the Southern Ocean

This book gathers contributions by 16 international authors on the phenomenon “bats,” shedding some light on their morphology, the feeding behaviors (insects, fruits, blood) of different groups, their potential and confirmed transmissions of agents of diseases, their endo- and ectoparasites, as well as countless myths surrounding their lifestyle (e.g. vampirism, chupacabras, batman etc.). Bats have been known in different cultures for several thousand centuries, however their nocturnal activities have made them mysterious and led to many legends and myths, while proven facts remained scarce. Even today, our knowledge of bats remains limited compared to other groups in the animal kingdom. Also, their famous ability to avoid collisions with obstacles during their nightly flights with the help of a sophisticated and unique system using ultrasound waves (which are transmitted and received) is as poorly studied as birds finding their way from continent to continent. In recent times, where globalization transports millions of people and goods from one end of the earth to the other, there are increased risks posed by agents of diseases, as a result of which bats have received increasing attention as potential vectors. These suppositions are based on their proven transmission of viruses such as rabies. In dedicated chapters, the book addresses the following topics: • The world of bats • The astonishing morphology of bats • Bats as potential reservoir hosts for vector-borne diseases • Bat endoparasites • Macroparasites – ectoparasites • Glimpses into how bats fly • Blood-licking bats • Vampirism in medicine and culture • Chupacabras and “goat milkers” • Myths on candiru As such, this book provides a broad range of information for all non-experts interested in biological topics, but also for people working in this field, as well as physicians and veterinarians who are confronted with clinical cases, and for teachers and students interested in expanding their knowledge of biology and of past and present cultures.

Facts and Myths

Bats (Chiroptera) as Vectors of Diseases and Parasites

This textbook focuses on the most important parasites affecting dogs, cats, ruminants, horses, pigs, rabbits, rodents, birds, fishes, reptiles and bees. For each parasite, the book offers a concise summary including its distribution, epidemiology, lifecycle, morphology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, prophylaxis and therapeutic measures. Numerous informative tables and more than 500 color micrographs and schemes present the most important aspects of the parasites, their induced diseases and the latest information on suitable prevention and control measures. 100 questions at the end of the book offer readers the chance to test their comprehension. The book is well suited as both a textbook and a reference guide for veterinarians, students of the veterinary and life sciences, veterinarian nurses, laboratory staff, and pet and livestock owners.

Diagnosis, Treatment, Prevention

Animal Parasites

This book focuses on waterborne pathogens and significant diseases occurring along major rivers around the globe, including key examples like the Amazonas, Mekong River and Nile. Written by leading international experts, it offers unique insights into local riverine infection risks in times of global warming, and addressing these through advances in diagnosis, health management and the development of simple but effective control measures. It also sheds light on why former societies collapsed due to transmitted diseases during periods of climate change, droughts and floods, to help establish effective preventive measures for the future. The book appeals to a wide readership, from scientists in the field of parasitology, infectious diseases and epidemiology, to healthcare managers and general readers with an interest in pathogen spread along the largest rivers on earth. It particularly highlights past and current control mechanisms in times of global warming and assesses potential future health hazards.

Past and Future Perspectives

Parasite and Disease Spread by Major Rivers on Earth

Trevor N. Petney

Weerachai Saijuntha

This thematic collection focuses on key parasites and their vectors in Southeast Asia. Up-to-date essays invite readers to discover parasite and vector morphology, genetic diversity as well as dynamic parasite communities linked to human land-use and climate change. The authors shed light on transmission pathways and explore tick-borne diseases, intestinal protozoa, cestodes, nematodes and the multiplicity of cryptic trematode species. Particular attention is given to mosquito vectors in changing environments and the dynamic biodiversity of vertebrate hosts, including mammals, birds and fish. The richly illustrated chapters are completed by new approaches in diagnostic methods, treatment and prevention to protect humans and animals from tropical parasite infections. Not only parasitologists and experts in tropical medicine but also public health officials and travelers will find this volume highly informative.

Biodiversity of Southeast Asian Parasites and Vectors causing Human Disease

Parasites threaten the health of animals and humans alike. Especially in times of increasing globalization and global warming, parasites can enlarge their “kingdom” by spreading. At the same time many of the existing medical products have become ineffective. As these products have been used for many decades, parasites have developed resistances, so that they have progressed in their fight for survival. Therefore it is obvious that humans must develop new methods to face these dangers. Thus parasitological knowledge increases daily and must be formulated to be accessible for as many parasitologists (veterinarians, physicians, biologists) as possible. Therefore it is necessary that reviews reflecting the present status of the progress in many fields of research be published. Therefore this book, published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German Society of Parasitology, compiles 18 reviews on recent “hot topics,” including a new vaccine against malarial parasites; severe diseases with poor chances of treatment (cryptosporidiosis, coccidiosis, theileriosis); vectors (mosquitoes, ticks) and their transmission activities; and fish parasites, including molecular insights into the sex of parasites with a focus on the survival abilities that made them so dangerous. These chapters provide detailed information for researchers, as well as for teachers and students in parasitology.

Progress in Parasitology

This edited volume focuses on parasite-host relationships and the behavioral changes parasites may trigger in their hosts. Parasites have developed strategies which enhance their chances to find a host to survive inside its body and to become most easily transmitted to one another. Many of these parasites influence the host’s behavior by various mechanisms, so that the rate of their transmissions to further hosts becomes considerably enhanced in comparison to that of non-influenced specimens of the same host species. A broad number of recent studies elucidate more and more examples in an extreme spectrum of host-parasite relationships, where successful transmission and /or survival of a parasite inside a host is based on parasite-derived behavioral manipulations of the hosts. In the literature, an increasing numbers of papers appear which prove that these behavioral alterations are based on complicated psychoimmunologic, neuropharmacologic and genomically steered mechanisms. Researchers working in parasitology or behavioral sciences will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

Host Manipulations by Parasites and Viruses

Knowledge in the field of parasitology must be kept at a high level and up to date in order to fight a parasitosis as quickly and effectively as possible. The third edition of this, one of Springer’s renowned and authoritative Major Reference Works, contributes to these goals in several ways. First, the number of entries has been increased by about 30%. Secondly the content has been improved even more by adding additional tables and figures. Thirdly, the extensive linking between definitions and essays facilitates information within a minimum of time. More than 40 international contributors, who are well known specialists in their fields, give a comprehensive review of all parasites and therapeutic strategies in veterinarian and human parasitology.

Encyclopedia of Parasitology: A-M

This second edition provides a comprehensive review of the facts and trends in veterinarian and human parasitology. Several internationally renowned specialists have been added to the authors of the first edition, and the whole is now organised in an encyclopedic arrangement of comprehensive keywords, thus speeding up the search for information.

Biology, Structure, Function

Encyclopedic Reference of Parasitology

Zhongdao Wu

Bin Ye

This book intensively examines the efficacy of plant-derived products that have been used for over a thousand years by practitioners of so-called Traditional Chinese Medicine in the light of recent chemotherapeuticals. The chapters were written by renowned Chinese medical researchers and are supplemented by results obtained in German antiparasitic research projects. Parasites and emerging diseases are a major threat of our time, which is characterized by an enormous increase in the size of the human population and by an unbelievably rapid globalization that has led to the daily transport of millions of humans and containers with goods from one end of the earth to the other. Furthermore the slow but constant global warming offers new opportunities for many agents of diseases to become established in new areas. Therefore it is essential that we develop precautions in order to avoid epidemics or even pandemics in overcrowded megacities or at the large-scale farm animal confinements that are needed to secure a steady flow of food in the crowded regions of the world. Of course intensive research in the field of chemotherapy since 1900 has produced unbelievable breakthroughs in therapies for formerly untreatable and thus deadly diseases. However, a large number of untreatable diseases remain, as well as a constantly growing number of agents of disease that have developed resistances to standard chemical compounds. As such, it is not only worthwhile but also vital to consider the enormous amounts of information that have been obtained by human “high cultures” in the past. Examples from the past (like quinine) or present (like artemisinin, a modern antimalarial drug) show that plant extracts may hold tremendous potential in the fight against parasites and/or against vector-transmitted agents of diseases.

Treatment of Human Parasitosis in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Nature helps... of course at first itself by developing measures that give bacteria, fungi, plants and animals a chance to be successful in their struggle for life. As a latecomer on Earth, Homo sapiens was gifted with some droplets of the divine spirit of recognition and thus became able to observe, to analyse and recombine skills of other living beings and to use them for his overwhelming career over the last 10,000 years. Of course fungi, plants, animals and even bacteria were primarily used by mankind as food or as lifestyle products such as beer, but soon it became clear that there was much more potential hidden in these organisms and that they could be used for other purposes, too. Extracts of plants and fungi were recognized as powerful remedies, as medicines, as insecticides or acarizides, as repellents against parasites or even as weapons, e.g. when poisonous compounds from frogs or plants were applied to arrowheads. Over the last 110 years the pharmaceutical industry has often simulated nature by analyzing complex organic substances taken from living organisms and then producing by synthesis absolutely pure compounds, which mostly consisted of only one single active substance. These products had the advantage of acting against precisely one target and thus produced fewer possible side effects than the complex plant extracts. However, the more serious side effect was that disease agents could develop resistances to pure medicinal products much more easily. Thus after 70 years of excellent prospects for chemotherapy, some dark clouds appeared and quickly gathered, so that several therapeutic remedies now no longer work. Therefore in many countries - especially in those where the pure chemotherapeutics are too expensive for the poor population - the cry “back to nature” is becoming louder and louder. This has led to an enormous increase of studies that again use natural extracts as remedies in the fight against diseases. The present book summarizes examples of promising aspects in a broad spectrum of applications and shows how extracts derived from bacteria, marine organisms, plants or even animals may help to treat infectious diseases, how such organisms may keep away parasites and pests from the bodies of plants or animals, including humans, and how they can be used directly to aid in diagnosis, promote wound healing and even to help catch criminals. These 15 chapters offer not only basic research on these different fields, but also show how useful and effective products can be developed from research.

How Plants and Other Organisms Contribute to Solve Health Problems

Nature Helps...

Giovanni Benelli

This book gathers contributions by 39 international specialists on well-known but neglected mosquito-borne diseases. The authors highlight pathogens that are increasingly being spread worldwide by various mosquito species, a situation worsened further by migration and tourism. The book addresses significant agents of diseases like AIDS, dengue, Zika virus, malaria and even cancer, and the risk of transmission via mosquito-related vectors. In addition, it examines important means of preventing the outbreak of related diseases by using insecticides and/or repellents. A particular focus is on the unique and sophisticated mouthparts of bloodsucking species, which allow them to feed on blood in an undisturbed manner, and by means of which agents of disease can enter potential human and animal hosts. In brief, the book provides a broad range of information for a wide readership, including graduates, teachers and researchers in the fields of parasitology, virology, tropical medicine and microbiology, as well as practitioners and healthcare officials.

Heinz Mehlhorn

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