The book takes a selection of familiar laboratory, domestic and wild animals (locusts, cockroaches, earthworms, dogfish, stickleback, goldfish, frog, clawed toad, tortoises, rodents, shrews, hedgehog, rabbit, dog, cat and man) and for each of them describes and illustrates their common animal parasites.

The book is aimed at students and teachers who, in those days, performed dissections during Biology courses and encourages them to identify some of the parasites likely to be encountered. Those of a certain age, who were taught A-level biology when it was still a separate subject, will be immediately taken back to their dissections of frog, dogfish, rat etc. It seems nowadays that it is only acceptable for celebrity chefs to cut up dead animals.

Although the title of the book doesn’t say so, nor is it mentioned in the introduction, comments in the text indicate that the focus is British.

Many of the parasites are ectoparasites, or are to be found in droppings. A few require dissection of a dead host, but this is mainly for the smaller hosts. The chapter on human parasites is presented for interest rather than as an invitation to experiment!