Handbook of Medical EntomologyRiley, William A. (William Albert)
Science
Handbook of Medical Entomology
Riley, William A. (William Albert)
Insect pests; Insects as carriers of disease; Medical parasitology
Koch had early described what he regarded as sexual forms from the
intestine of the fly but it remained for Kleine (1909) to experimentally
demonstrate that a part of the life cycle of the parasite was undergone
in the fly. Working with _Glossina palpalis_, he found that for a period
of ten days or longer after feeding on an animal suffering from nagana
it was non-infective, but that then it became infective and was able to
transmit the disease for weeks thereafter. He discovered and described
developmental stages of the parasite within the intestine of the insect.
In other words, the tsetse-fly (in nature, _Glossina morsitans_), serves
as an essential host, within which an important part of the life cycle
of the parasite is undergone. These conclusions were quickly verified by
Bruce and numerous other workers and are no longer open to question.
Klein and Taute are even inclined to think that mechanical transmission
plays practically no rôle in nature, unless the fly is interrupted while
feeding and passes immediately to a new animal.
TSETSE-FLIES AND SLEEPING SICKNESS OF MAN--About the beginning of the
present century a hitherto little known disease of man began to attract
great attention on account of its ravages in Uganda and the region of
Victoria Nyanza in South Africa. It was slow, insiduous and absolutely
fatal, characterized in its later stages by dullness, apathy, and
finally absolute lethargy all day long, symptoms which gave it the name
of "sleeping sickness."
It was soon found that the disease was not a new one but that it had
been known for over a hundred years on the west coast of Africa. Its
introduction into Central and East Africa and its rapid spread have been
attributed primarily to the development of the country, the formation of
new trade routes and the free mingling of native tribes formerly
isolated. It is estimated that in the first ten years of the present
century there were approximately two hundred thousand deaths from the
disease in the Uganda protectorate. In the British province Bugosa, on
the Victoria Nyanza there were thirty thousand deaths in the period from
1902-1905.
While the disease is peculiarly African there are a number of instances
of its accidental introduction into temperate regions. Slaves suffering
from it were occasionally brought to America in the early part of the
last century and cases have sometimes been imported into England. In
none of the cases did the disease gain a foothold or spread at all to
other individuals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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