TROPICAL FEBRILE SPLENOMEGALY.! 
By Paun G, Wooley. 
(From the Serum Laboratory, Bureau of Seience.) 
The disease known as tropical splenomegaly is characterized chiefly by 
splenic hypertrophy, emaciation, an irregular temperature uninfluenced 
by quinine and certain gastro-intestinal symptoms such as diarrhea or 
. f=) ry, 
dysentery. Christophers also maintains that amcbw are invariably 
present. Such cases have been reported from various parts of India, 
from Egypt, China, Tunis, Algiers, Arabia, and the Philippine Islands. 
Giles first considered the disease as a combination of malaria and anchylos- 
tomiasis and Bently thought it to be due to infection with M. melitensis. Rogers 
at first supposed it to be the result of a severe chronic malarial infection, but 
later in the cases from all of the above-mentioned sources save the last, a 
peculiar parasite has been described, first by Leishman in a case at Dum Dum 
in India, later by Donovan, Christophers, Rogers, Manson, Low, Phillips, Mar- 
chand, Ledingham, and others. 
Since the publications of Leishman and Donovan, much speculation 
has arisen regarding the place which, in our classification, should be 
assigned to these parasites. Ross thought them to be an involution 
form of trypanosoma, and Laveran concluded that they belonged to the 
genus piroplasma or pirogma. Late investigations seem to point to the 
wisdom of Ross’s conclusion, the weightiest reason being that Rogers 
has stated that in cultures of the bodies obtained by splenic puncture, 
after some days he has been able to demonstrate unmistakable trypano- 
somata which, to be sure, were very immature in most cases. Through 
the kindness of Dr. Strong I have had the pleasure of seeing some of 
Rogers’s preparations, which were smears both from the spleen pulp and 
from cultures and while to judge from these. it is not clear just what the 
relation of the two preparations is, nevertheless, in the cultures there 
were structures which very closely simulated trypanosomata. The Leish- 
man bodies themselves were not especially convincing to me, perhaps 
because I have seen too few. However that may be, there seems to be a 
"Read at the third annual meeting of the Philippine Islands Medical Associa- 
tion, March 2, 1906, 
