Page:The Journal of Tropical Medicine, volume 6.djvu/212

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180 THE JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE

age, has had a distinguished career. He studied in Florence, where he qualified in June, 1899, with highest honours. He worked under Kruse and Finkler in the bacteriological laboratory at Bonn for one year. He spent another year in the bacteriological department of the Jenner Institute, London, under MacFadyen ; and after studying at the London School of Tropical Medicine, went to Africa to investigate sleeping sickness as bacteriologist to the Royal Society Commission. One of the earliest investigations undertaken by Dr. Castellani, and published in the Settimana Medica, 1899, No. 3, was entitled Il bacilo di Eberth nel sangue, he has contributed many important papers, amongst which we find: ‘‘ Upona Special Method for the Detection of the Typhoid Bacillus in the Blood ” (Centralb. fiir Bakt., Bd. xxxi., p. 10); “On Hemolysins Produced by Certain Bac- teria” (Lancet, February 15th, 1902) ; Die Aggluti- nation bei Gemischter Infection und die Diagnose der letzteren (Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene wnd Infec- tion-krankheiten, 1902).

His testimonials from Professor Kruse, Dr. Patrick Manson, Major Ronald Ross and Pro- fessor MacFadyen speak highly of his attain- ments as a_ bacteriologist, and it must be a and since then matter of satisfaction to these eminent scientists to know that Dr. Castellani has fulfilled their expectations. In the article on the “‘ Researches which we publish in this issue, it will be noted that Dr: “TI do not see any reason why man should not be attacked by different species of trypanosoma, each of which This fact has been clearly demonstrated in the lower animals. is liable to be infected different species of trypanosoma : the the cause of Surra ; on the Etiology of Sleeping Sickness,”

Castellani remarks:

might give rise to a different disease.

The horse, for instance, by three Trypanosoma Brucet, cause of Nagana; Trypanosoma Hvansi, T'ry- panosoma equiperdum (Doflein), the cause of the called “ ” V@ihis' is a

teresting suggestion, and opens up a large field

disease Dourine. most in-

for research.

[June 1, 1908.

Dr. Castellani states that he found the trypan- osoma in the blood as well as in the cerebro-

spinal fluid of patients suffering from sleeping

sickness; this fact appears to call for further

investigation not only in regard to the differ- entiation of trypanosomes, but also to a closer pathological study of the seemingly different ail- ments induced by the possible varieties of the parasite.

So

Aveprint.

FILARIA PERSTANS.

By Gerorecr C. Low, M.A., M.B., C.M.

Medical Superintendent and Tutor London School of Tropical Medicine, —

THE embryonic or larval forms of Fiuaria perstans were first discovered by Manson in 1891 in the blood of a West African negro suffering from sleeping sick- ness, who was under the care of Dr. Stephen Mackenzie in the London Hospital. Later, in films of blood sent from Old Calabar and the Congo, he found the same parasite, and in 1897 described small sharp and blunt- tailed filarial embryos in specimens of blood sent by Dr. Ozzard from British Guiana, which he provisionally named Filaria Ozzardi.

Daniels, in 1897, confirmed the latter observations by finding that those embryos were very common in the blood of the aboriginal Indians of the interior of British Guiana, and in the following year he discovered the parental forms of the blunt variety.

Adult forms of the African blunt-tailed embryo were next found at the necropsy of one of the negroes who died from sleeping sickness in Charing Cross Hospital, and Manson, after a comparison of those with the British Guiana forms, came to the conclusion that they were

identical, and so cleared up the life-history of his original embryos, which he had named Filaria perstans. GroGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND PREVALENCE.

South America.—Filaria perstans, Ozzard first pointed out, is very common amongst the aboriginal Indians in the interior of British Guiana, though not being found in Georgetown and the coast adjoining.

While studying filarial diseases in the West Indies in 1901 I did not once meet with it in the blood of large numbers of individuals examined in St. Kitts, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Grenada, or Trinidad, but as already mentioned, it was exceedingly common in British Guiana. Out of a total of 163 Indians seen in different parts of the dense tropical forests, no fewer than 94, or 57°6 per cent., exhibited the parasite in their blood, 56 of those being pure infections, while in the other 38 it was associated with sharp-tailed em- bryos. Although it is not found in Georgetown and in New Amsterdam, nor the cultivated strip of the