Influence of some potential molluscacides on the oxygen consumption of Australorbis glabratus.

The killing mechanisms of chemical compounds used in the control of harmful or obnoxious invertebrates are quite variable. The problem has been investigated to some extent for the case of insects, but no data whatever seem available for snails in general and the trematode-transmitting species specifically. The urgent need for new molluscacides, more potent than the much applied copper sulfate or similar substances, has led to a survey of the snail-killing properties of a variety of chemical compounds, the results of which will be reported elsewhere by Nolan and Mann. During this work a number of potential molluscacides was uncovered. These, as well as some inactive compounds, were studied by us in respect to their inhibitory effect on the oxygen consumption of Australorbis glabratus, the intermediate host of Schistosoma mansoni in the West Indies and South America.1