Gymnophalloides seoi Eggs from the Stool of a 17th Century Female Mummy Found in Hadong, Republic of Korea

Abstract

It was previously reported that paleoparasitological clues for parasites infecting humans could be found in the feces of mummies of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) in the Republic of Korea. Here, we report the presence of trematode eggs, including Clonorchis sinensis, Metagonimus yokogawai, and Gymnophalloides seoi (a human parasite known in Korea since 1993) in the feces of a recently excavated female mummy in Hadong, Republic of Korea. This is the first report of the discovery of a G. seoi infection in a human mummy. Since Hadong is currently not an endemic area for G. seoi, we speculate that the parasite might have occurred frequently along coastal areas of the Korean peninsula several hundred years ago and that the endemic areas contracted to, more or less, restricted regions since that time.

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.…”

Foodborne Intestinal Flukes in Southeast Asia

“…To date, more than 25 villages on western and southern coastal islands [151][152][153][154][155] and 3 non-island coastal villages [156] were identified as endemic areas. A 17th century femal mummy found in Hadong, a southern costal area of Korea, has been found to be infected with G. seoi; thus, this species is thought to have been prevalent in Korea for longer than several hundred years [157]. This parasite has been known to be present only in the Republic of Korea.…”

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).…”