Absorption studies in children with giardia lamblia infection: A Preliminary Report

Infection of children with the flagellate giardia lamblia often causes abdominal symptoms, anaemia and defective development. It is not known how these symptoms originate. Abdominal pains are most probably connected with the mechanical action of the protozoa. Anaemia may be due to the fact that the parasites inhabit and thus damage a part of the body which plays an important part in haematopoiesis. No satisfactory explanation has been offered for the interference with development, since the small amount of foodstuffs withdrawn by the parasites cannot be sufficiently great to cause severe loss. This circumstance led me to examine the conditions of absorption in children infected with giardia lamblia. Particular attention was paid to fat absorption. Cursory examinations had already revealed abnormalities in this function, and Miller (1926) had observed that typical steatorrhea was a common condition in the giardia epidemics in the Great War. Concentration of urinary pigments was also estimated. The value of this latter is not always characteristic of intestinal absorption, neither are the changes proportional. But if absorption in the bowel is hindered by some cause a high proportion of the biliary pigments will be excreted in the faeces and the amount of pigments in the urine thus lessened.