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THE TICK FEVER PARASITE. 



By R. Greig Smith, M.Sc. 



Tick fever is a disease which appears to be widely distributed 

 throughout the warmer countries of the world. It is primarily 

 an acute anaemia, associated with a haematozoon, which feeds 

 upon and destroys the red blood corpuscles. In consequence 

 of tlie degradation and disintegration of the corpuscles, the 

 capillaries become clogged, the internal organs intensely swollen, 

 and the liver and kidneys being frequently unable to cope with 

 the task of eliminating the products of the coi'puscle disintegra- 

 tion, death results from what is essentially capillary congestion. 

 During the very rapid destruction of the corpuscles, the urine 

 may be of a dark red colour and albuminous. 



So far as is definitely known, the disease occurs only among 

 cattle, but two diseases of sheep have been described which appear 

 to be caused by the same parasite. In the southern portions of 

 the United States of America it is known as Texas or southern 

 cattle fever; in Italy, East Africa and Turkey as cattle malaria; 

 in the lower x'eaches of the Danube as haemoglobinuria, and in 

 Sardinia and Finland as haematuria. 



Theobold Smith, in conjunction with Kili)orne, was the first to 

 give a complete account of the disease and to trace its cause to 

 a haematozoon which he callerl Fijromimx bigemiiium, a name 

 which has been altered by Wasielewski (s) to Apiosmna biyeminum. 

 Smith. One year previous to the first of Theobald Smith's papers, 

 Babes had described under the name of haemogloljinuria a disease 

 of cattle in the swampy pa.stures of the lower Danube in Ruu- 

 mania, and had traced the cause to a haematozoon, but although 

 the disease is now considered to be identical with Texas fever, 

 Babes' description of the parasite was far from being as complete 

 as that of Theobald Smith 

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