ON KALA-AZAR 133
Dr. Low, after thanking Captain Patten for his inter-
esting paper, said he would hke to ask him a question
on the development of the forms illustrated on the black-
board. He could not himself say that it was definitely
certain yet that the Leishman parasite was a herpeto-
monas, though it had, as the lecturer had pointed out,
many resemblances, especially in the flagellate form. It
did not appear that these forms of herpetomonas repre-
sented went through any sexual development, but simply
reproduced by fission in the body of the fly. On the other
hand, the Leishman body was a cellular parasite and
apparently to go through its development must have an
extracorporeal sexual life-cycle in the bug. He thought
there was enough evidence (apart from resemblances) to
diff'erentiate it into a different parasite altogether. One
must be careful with regard to resemblances. In trypano-
somes he had seen forms which were really very diflicult to
distinguish from the young forms of Leishman-Donovan
bodies, and therefore he thought superficial resemblance
between the first stages of parasites should not be allowed
too much weight. He (Dr. Low) was certain that the
parasite of Oriental sore was different from that of kala-
azar. He had recently seen two cases of Oriental sore
from Persia. He had asked one of them whether kala-
azar existed there, and the answer was most emphatically,
that it did not, or at least was very- rare.
He did not know anything about the new parasite of infantile splenomegaly ; he had seen the one of Darling, and he was inclined to think it distinctly a different para- site from the Leishman-Donovan body.
As regards the life-history of the parasite in the bug, he found it very interesting, but it would be of great advantage if one could prove transference back from the bug. Experiments on dogs had always failed, but if we
