426 



RESEARCH IN PROTOZOOLOGY 



finding of parasites by various methods. The comparative tests 

 by Chopra, Gupta and Basu (1927) in Table 8 affirm the superior- 

 ity of the antimony test over the aldehyde test. As may be seen 

 from the latter, the tests are not dependable for very early diag- 



TABLE 7 



CORRELATION OF ALDEHYDE TEST FOR KALA-AZAR AND RESULTS OF 

 SPLEEN PUNCTURE 



(Data obtained by combining tables given by Napier, 1923) 

 Aldehyde test 



•S 

 .s 



i 



* Of these 122 patients negative by spleen puncture, 14 were hospital 

 patients and had the following examinations : i had a single spleen puncture, 

 8 had two, 4 had three and i had four. 



nosis and do not as yet seem to supplant the demonstration of 

 the parasite to establish the disease. 



C. Trypanosomiasis. Although the diagnosis of trypanosomes 

 rests in general on the demonstration of the specific parasite, the 

 scarcity of parasites in some infections makes serological studies 



TABLE 8 



A COMPARISON OF THE ANTIMONY AND ALDEHYDE TESTS WITH SERUMS FROM 

 PATIENTS INFECTED FOR VARYING LENGTHS OF TIME WITH KALA-AZAR 



of interest, and in one case (dourine of horses) serological 

 tests have been found to be superior to routine microscopical 

 examination and are used extensively in certain laboratories. 



In an extended series of investigations on complement fixation 

 the test antigens have been of three types : ( i ) extracts of normal 



