The Animal Parasites of ManFantham, Harold Benjamin
Science
The Animal Parasites of Man
Fantham, Harold Benjamin
Medical parasitology
Certain regular periods occur in the course of the trypanosomiasis when
few or no flagellate trypanosomes are found in the peripheral blood
of the patient or of the sub-inoculated animal. These periods can be
explained in terms of morphology, for the trypanosomes are capable of
assuming a non-flagellate form in the internal organs of the host,
particularly in the lungs and in the spleen. Such forms are known as
“latent” or “resting” forms. The term “latent body” was first used
by Moore and Breinl in 1907[69] in connection with _T. gambiense_.
Fantham[70] (1911) has described the process of formation of latent
from motile forms and the reconversion of the latent bodies into
active flagellates. Fresh preparations of splenic blood or lung blood
containing trypanosomes were made. A trypanosome gradually withdrew or
cast off its flagellum, concentrated its cytoplasm, and became more or
less elongate oval. Nucleus and blepharoplast approached one another
and came to lie more or less side by side. Then an opaque line often
made its appearance around the nuclear area and differentiated as a
slight envelope or covering, the cytoplasm external to this merely
degenerating. The small, oval, refractile body (fig. 29, _d_--_f_) thus
formed was a non-flagellate latent body, 2 µ to 4 µ in diameter, like
_Leishmania_ or the non-flagellate, multiplicative forms of _T. cruzi_
(fig. 34), and remains temporarily inactive in the internal organs of
the host. After this period of inactivity, the non-flagellate body,
recuperated by its rest, begins to elongate again. The nuclei separate.
From a small vacuole-like portion the flagellum differentiates and
forces out the ectoplasm, which assumes the form of the undulating
membrane with its flagellar border. Subsequent growth results in
the production of the typical trypanosome form, which re-enters the
circulating blood and multiplies by longitudinal binary fission.
Division of the parasite prior to the formation of a latent body may
occur and division of the latent forms themselves is known, though
less common. Consequently latent bodies, like the flagellate forms
themselves, show diversity in size. The blepharoplast of the latent
bodies is sometimes less well marked than in _Leishmania_ (see fig. 29,
_d_-_f_). Laveran’s views on these bodies have already been given on
p. 74.
[69] _Annals Trop. Med. and Parasitol._, i, p. 441.
[70] _Proc. Roy. Soc._, B, lxxxiii, p. 212.
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