The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseasesStitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Science
The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases
Stitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Tropical medicine
These parasites are grouped with the haemoflagellates and
occur in their vertebrate hosts exclusively as small, oval,
cockle-shell-shaped bodies, measuring 2.5 × 3.0 microns. The
protoplasm stains a faint blue and contains a rather large
trophonucleus which is peripherally placed and gives the appearance
of the hinge of the cockle shell. Besides this macronucleus we have
a second chromatin-staining body which is often rod-shaped and set
at a tangent to the larger nuclear structure. It is called the
blepharoplast or micronucleus and stains a more intense reddish
than the rather fainter stained pinkish macronucleus. One or more
vacuoles are common in the cytoplasm.
Some consider these nonflagellated bodies, which are usually found
packed in endothelial cells of spleen, liver, lymphatic glands and
bone marrow, as resting stages, the flagellate existence occurring
in some other host than its vertebrate one. Patton has carried on
an immense amount of experimental work with the bedbug and has
noted the development of flagellate forms from the 5th to the 8th
days in bugs which fed on kala-azar patients showing leishman
bodies in their peripheral circulation. If the bugs are allowed
a second feeding after the infecting blood meal the flagellates
disappear within twelve hours, so that for full development in the
bedbug a single feeding is requisite. He states that the flagellate
forms change to post-flagellate ones by the twelfth day. At the
same time, although much evidence exists in favor of the bedbug as
host for the flagellate forms, it has not been shown experimentally
that the bedbug is definitely connected with the transmission of
the disease.
Donovan is disposed to incriminate _Conorhinus rubrifasciatus_ as
the transmitting agent and furthermore he feels that there has not
been sufficient investigation of mosquitoes along this line.
_Canine Leishmaniasis._—In the regions where leishmaniasis of
infants occurs there is also found a similar disease of dogs and
Basile has claimed that the disease is transmitted from dog to dog by
the dog flea. As the dog has been regarded by some as the reservoir
of the virus, so naturally the transmission of the disease from dog
to child through the flea has been considered.
Wenyon, however, tried to infect two young dogs with great number
of fleas which had previously fed on dogs infected with canine
leishmaniasis and at autopsy, five or six weeks later, was unable
to find parasites in smears from spleen, liver or bone marrow and
did not succeed in obtaining cultures from this material inoculated
into tubes of N. N. N. medium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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