- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Giardia lamblia

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A species of Giardia. Common symptoms of infection with G. Lamblia are diarrhoea and anorexia. Onset of the symptoms begins about two weeks after exposure, and the disease may persist for up to two to three months. The disease is most common in toddlers.

Giardia was initially described by Antonin van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) in 1681 as he was examining his own diarrheal stools under the microscope. It was next discovered by Vilem Dusan Lambl in 1859 and described as Cercominas intestinalis. The term Lamblia intestinalis was coined by Raphael Anatole Émile Blanchard ( 1857-) in 1888. In 1915, Charles Wardell Stiles (1867-1941) et. al introduced the name Giardia lamblia. It is now commonly called Giardia lamblia or Giardia intestinalis in the French and English/American literature.

We thank Malcolm H. Duncan for information submitted.

Bibliography

  • A. Van Leeuwenhoek:
    Ontdeckte onsightbaarhede. Leiden 1684-1686.
    The Dutch edition of a number of letters to the Royal Society of London. Leeuwenhoek's description is in a a letter – in Dutch - of November 4, 1681, read in English at Royal Society, London, November 9, 1681.
  • A. Van Leeuwenhoek:
    Anatomica seu interiora rerum. Leiden 1687.
  • W. Lambl:
    Mikroskopische untersuchungen der Darmexcrete.
    Prager Vierteljahrsshrift für praktische Heilkunde, 1859, 61:1-58.
  • R. Blanchard:
    Remarques sur le megastome intestinal.
    Bulletin de la Societe Zoologique de France, 1888, 13:18.
  • Leslie L. Lumsden (1875-1946), C. W. Stiles, and A. W. Freeman:
    Safe Disposal of Human Excreta at Unsewered Homes.
    Public Health Bulletin No.68, United States Public Health Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1915.
  • C. A. Dobell:
    The discovery of the intestinal protozoa of man.
    Proceedings pf the Royal Society of Medicine, London, 1920, 13: 1-15.
  • C. W. Stiles and Albert Hassall (1862-1942):
    Key-catalogue of the protozoa reported for man.
    Washington, Government Printing Office, 1922.

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