Common Disease-Causing Organisms Like Ascaris, Entamoeba, Plasmodium, Ringworm Through Permanent Slides or Specimens. Comment on Symptoms of Diseases That They Cause

Aim

To observe the disease-causing organisms like Ascaris, Entamoeba, Plasmodium and Ringworm through permanent slides.

Materials Required

Preserved slides or specimens of disease-causing organisms like Ascaris, Entamoeba, Plasmodium and Ringworm.

Procedure

Observe the specimens or slides and identify the organism on the basis of its features.

Observations

Ascaris

Phylum: Aschelminthes

Class: Nematoda

Type: Ascaris lumbricoides

Ascaris exhibits the following characteristic features:

1. It has a long, cylindrical and unsegmented body.
2. The male and female organisms are separate.
3. It bears a mouth at the anterior end surrounded by three lips.
4. There is an excretory pore on the ventral surface slightly behind the anterior end.
5. A pair of penial spicules are present in the male worms close to the cloacal opening.
6. The female genitals are present at about one-third distance from the anterior end.

Ascariasis is the disease caused by Ascaris lumbricoides or roundworm.

Symptoms:

• Abdominal cramping
• Abdominal swelling
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Fever

Entamoeba

Phylum: Protozoa

Class: Rhizopoda

Type: Entamoeba hystolytica

Following are the characteristic features of Entamoeba:

1. It is a unicellular organism with an irregular shape.
2. It consists of a few food vacuoles. The contractile vacuole is absent.
3. Cysts with four nuclei are present.
4. It consists of a nucleus located eccentrically in the cell.

Entamoeba histolytica is an organism found in the intestines of humans that is responsible for causing amoebic dysentery.

Symptoms:

• Abdominal pain
• Watery diarrhoea with mucus, blood and pus
• Fatigue
• Fever
• Nausea
• Vomiting

Plasmodium

Phylum: Protozoa

Class: Sporozoa

Type: Plasmodium vivax

Plasmodium can be identified by the following characteristic features:

1. It is a unicellular endoparasite found within the red blood cells of the diseased person.
2. The parasite is mostly diagnosed at the “signet ring” stage where the parasite appears as a round body.
3. There is a big vacuole present inside the cell. The cytoplasm is accumulated at one place and contains the nucleus.

Plasmodium vivax is a protozoan parasite that causes malaria in humans. The infected female anopheles bites a healthy person and transmits the sporozoite into the peripheral blood vessels of humans, thereby, causing malaria.

Symptoms:

• High fever
• Shaking chills from moderate to severe.
• Headache
• Vomiting
• Nausea

Ringworm

Kingdom: Fungi

Class: Deuteromycetes

Type: Trichophyton rubrum

Trichophyton or ringworm fungus has the following characteristic features:

1. This fungus feeds on the keratin of the skin of human beings.
2. The hyphae are waxy and can be smooth or cotton-like.
3. Hyphae that are not stained are yellowish-brown, reddish-brown or white in colour.

Ringworm is a communicable fungal infection of the skin.

Symptoms:

• Scaly, itchy skin
• Red and raised patches
• They are redder at the periphery than at the centre and forms a ring-like appearance.

Also Read: Microbes and Disease

Infectious Diseases

Learn more in detail about the different types of disease, the causing agents, other related topics and experiments at BYJU’S Biology.