Basic Clinical Parasitology. There are a number of WEB sites with large collection of parasite images. These notes are a guide to the undergraduate medical student lecture series at McGill University. Hyperlinks to an image library are indicated in the text. The images are of high definition and are best viewed with a fast computer.
Emphasis is placed on Canadian parasites and parasites which present major problems to world health.
In a more restricted definition, it refers to organisms that are not viruses, bacteria, fungi, rickettsia, or chlamydia and obviously include organisms of varying complexity from a unicellular protozoa to a complex multicellular helminths. The sequence of morphologic and environmental stages is referred to as the life cycle. The following areas of knowledge are suggested as especially important for the beginner. Phylum Sarcomastigophora . There are 45,000 species of protozoa.