Finding Ancient Parasite Larvae in a Sample From a Male Living in Late 17th Century Korea

Abstract

Parasitological examination of samples from tombs of the Korean Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) could be helpful to researchers in understanding parasitic infection prevalence in pre-industrial Korean society. Whereas most of our previous parasitological studies revealed the presence of ancient parasite eggs in coprolites of Korean mummies, a sample from a man living in late 17th century Korea proved to be relatively unique in possessing what appeared to be several species of parasite larvae. The larvae identified included Strongyloides stercoralis and Trichostrongylus spp., along with eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and Paragonimus westermani. Since ancient parasite larvae retain enough morphology to make proper species identification possible, even after long burial times, the examination of parasite larvae within ancient samples will be conducted more carefully in our future work.

Food, parasites, and epidemiological transitions: A broad perspective

“…), and the lung fluke (Paragonimus sp.). From Korea, a variety of researchers reported M. yokogawai, Paragonimus westermani, Gymnophalloides seoi and Taenia eggs f in mummies , Seo et al, 2009, Shin et al, 2009a, 2009b, 2011. Thus, food related parasites were very well established in Asia.…”

Synthesizing Parasitology with Archaeology in Paleopathology

“…Their papers cover methodological issues, address interpretive problems, and approach the knotty problem of differential preservation of parasite remains in tombs. Seo et al (2009) and Shin et al (2009) provide literature reviews of the many papers that have come out of the Korean archaeoparasitological collaborations during recent years. Their work is characterized by refined diagnostic techniques combined with meticulous association of parasites with well-illustrated archaeological contexts.…”

Estimation of parasite infection prevalence of Joseon people by paleoparasitological data updates from the ancient feces of pre-modern Korean mummies

“…Briefly, in our previous studies on the ancient feces, we have employed microscopic or molecular techniques to discover different kinds of ancient parasite eggs such as Ascaris, Trichuris, Clonorchis, Paragonimus, Metagonimus, Gymnophalloides, Strongyloides, Enterobius, Taenia, and Trichostrongylus (Seo et al, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014aShin et al, 2009aShin et al, , b, 2011Shin et al, , 2012aShin et al, , b, 2013aShin et al, , b, 2014Shin et al, , 2015Oh et al, 2010aOh et al, , b, 2015Kim et al, 2014). From a series of studies on Korean mummy feces, we constructed the existing corpus on Joseon mummy parasitism (n = 18).…”