Animals P by: Geoffrey LaPage Published by ... - PSSurvival.com

Editorial Foreword
DISEASE, the general nature of which I attempted to describe in
one qf my own books, may be inborn in a man. Indeed it can be
handed down to him as a legacy from generation to generation.
More often it is due to man succumbing to one of the many and
sometimes great dangers to which we are all exposed in varying
degrees in the environment in which we live. Of these one of the
most important is unfortunate collision with some other form of
life which shares this strange world with us. True that the larger
animals have long since ceased to be any grave menace to mankind,
but the smaller forms of life, which can get into or live on
man’s body, are now well recognized, common and widely distributed
causes of disease. These latter, in so far as water-tight
classification is possible, include, in ascending order of magnitude,
the pathogenic viruses, the pathogenic bacteria, and the
animals parasitic in or on man.
In this volume, Dr Geoffrey Lapage, who has devoted a lifetime
*o the study of parasitic animals and the diseases which they
carry, particularly in tropical and sub-tropical countries, gives a
fascinating account of the more important parasites which may
affect man and cause different forms of disease in him. He explains
the devious devices by which they get inside different parts of the
human body; how, having got there successfully, they compete
with and live at the expense of their host; how they reproduce in
such a way as to ensure the survival of their race; and how many
have evolved multiple and complex life cycles that have widened
their distribution in organic nature. He also tells us how they
cause disease in man and finally how they can be best avoided or
eradicated and so the disease which they cause prevented.
Thii book should make an appeal to a wide circle of readers.
First and foremost it will be invaluable to the medical student.
For the doctor, particularly if he is likely to practise medicine in
the tropics, must possess a sound working knowledge of this important
subject and in these pages the medical student will find
an attractive account of human parasites and parasitic disease in
man to which the dry verbiage of the average text book of medicine
just cannot hold a candle. In the second, it is bound to make
an appeal to any layman interested in natural history. For the
study of parasitology, more perhaps than that of any other branch