Screening of Drugs in Experimental Schistosomiasis Mansoni in Mice

Abstract

In a previous paper (1) the conditions that it seemed best to observe in setting up a controlled laboratory drug screening procedure using mice infected with Schistosoma mansoni were set forth in detail. The concern of the work now to be reported was to screen a large number of compounds in a search for new chemical structures that might be of some value in killing schistosome parasites in vivo. Altogether over 400 compounds were tested. The previous paper has defined the conditions for producing what it had been hoped would be a uniform degree of infection in mice. The extent to which the infection was uniform has been analyzed from autopsy data of over 400 control infected mice. From these data were deduced the following characteristics regarded as normal for the infection produced from 150 cercariae under the standardized conditions recommended.