Helminthology

Helminthology is the study of parasitic worms (helminths). The field studies the taxonomy of helminths and their effects on their hosts.

The helminth Spinochordodes parasitising a bush-cricket (Meconema sp.)

A plate from Félix Dujardin's 1845 Histoire naturelle des helminthes ou vers intestinaux

The origin of the first compound of the word is the Greek ἕλμινς - helmins, meaning "worm".

In the 18th and early 19th century there was wave of publications on helminthology; this period has been described as the science's "Golden Era". During that period the authors Félix Dujardin,[1] William Blaxland Benham, Peter Simon Pallas, Marcus Elieser Bloch, Otto Friedrich Müller,[2] Johann Goeze, Friedrich Zenker, Charles Wardell Stiles, Carl Asmund Rudolphi, Otto Friedrich Bernhard von Linstow[3] and Johann Gottfried Bremser started systematic scientific studies of the subject.[4]

The Japanese parasitologist Satyu Yamaguti was one of the most active helminthologists of the 20th century; he wrote the six-volume Systema Helminthum.[5][6]