Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 2 (3).djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ON KALA-AZAR
137

criticized he did not condemn—Captain Patton had, for example, in describing H. muscæ domesticæ assumed that the fly was infected by feeding on the excreta of another fly. He questioned very much the probability of this; it was an assumption which required to be proved before being accepted. Another point he would refer to was the identity, or non-identity, of the parasites of kala-azar, infantile splenomegaly and Oriental sore. Either was quite possible, but neither had been proved. Sir Havelock Charles said he had not met with kala-azar in the regions where Oriental sore was prevalent, and vice versâ, and from that fact he drew the conclusion that the diseases could not be identical. Dr. Sambon opposed this objection very aptly by saying that people living in the regions of Oriental sore were all vaccinated against kala-azar, and those living in the regions of kala-azar were vaccinated against Oriental sore. It was a very odd thing that the disease of infantile splenomegaly was a very serious disease as regards man and a non-fatal disease in the lower animals. Novy obtained parasites of infantile splenomegaly and inoculated several hundreds of cultures of this parasite into a dog, and failed, as he thought, to produce an infection. There was no clinical evidence whatever of successful infection. After many months he killed the dog and was surprised, on examining smears taken from the liver, spleen, and bone-marrow, to find them crowded with Leishman-Donovan bodies; thereby showing that this parasite, which was fatal in man, was harmless in dogs. He (Sir P. Manson) thought it was a justifiable speculation that something similar might occur in the case of the kala-azar parasite in its relationship to Oriental sore. The subject was well worth further investigation. From a practical point of view the parasite of Oriental sore afforded a splendid