PLASMODIUM, HAEMOPROTEUS AND LEUCOCYTOZOON 



267 



PLASMODIUM GALLINACEUM 

 BRUMPT, 1945 



Disease : Chicken malaria. 



Hosts : Chicken. 



Crawford (1945) thought that jungle 

 fowls are the natural hosts of P. gallina- 

 cemn. These are Gallus lafayetti in 

 Ceylon, G. sonnerati in Sumatra and G. 

 bankiva in India. Brumpt (1936), how- 

 ever, thought that the natural, wild host 

 is still unknown. Jungle fowls are rela- 

 tively resistant, but outbreaks of disease 

 occur in domestic chickens introduced 

 into areas where the parasite is endemic 

 in wild birds. 



Pheasants, partridges, peacocks and 

 geese have been infected experimentally, 

 but the duck, guinea fowl, pigeon, turtle 

 dove, quail, buzzard, canary, English 

 sparrow, Java sparrow {Padda oryzivora) 

 and finch are resistant (Brumpt, 1936). 



Location : Erythrocytes. The exo- 

 erythrocytic stages are in endothelial 

 cells. 



Geographic Distribution : Southern 

 Asia, Indonesia. P. gallinaceuni was first 

 seen by Crawford in Ceylon and named by 

 Brumpt (1935) from material sent to him 

 from Indochina. It has also been found in 

 India (Rao, Das and Ramnani, 1951; Das, 

 Rao and Ramnani, 1952) and Java, Suma- 

 tra and Celebes (Kraneveld and Mansjoer, 

 1953). It was reported from Egypt by 

 Haiba (1948), but this record requires 

 confirmation. 



Morphology : The gametocytes and 

 schizonts are round or irregular. The 

 host cell nucleus is displaced but seldom 

 expelled. The pigment granules in the 

 gemetocytes are rather large and not very 

 numerous. The schizonts produce 8 to 30 

 merozoites. 



Life Cycle : The life cycle is similar 

 to that of other Plasmodium species. The 

 exo-erythrocytic stages in the endothelial 

 or reticulo -endothelial cells of the spleen, 

 brain, liver, etc. have been described by 



James and Tate (1937, 1938), James (1939) 

 and Huff and Coulston (1944). The natural 

 vectors are unknown, but various mosqui- 

 toes, including Aedes aegypti, A. albo- 

 pictus, A. geniculatus and Culex quinque- 

 fasciatiis, are potential vectors (Brumpt, 

 1936, 1936a; Vargas and Beltran, 1941). 

 Huff (1954) listed 29 susceptible and 1 

 questionable species of which 19 are 

 Aedes, 5 Armigeres, 2 (possibly 3) Culex, 

 1 Anopheles , 1 Culiseta and 1 Mansonia. 



Pathogenesis : P. gallinaceuni causes 

 a serious disease with a high mortality 

 rate in domestic chickens. The body tem- 

 perature fluctuates, and anemia and splen- 

 omegaly are present. The birds may be- 

 come paralyzed and die due to blocking of 

 the brain capillaries by the exoerythrocytic 

 stages. 



Remarks : Beltran (1941, 1943a) and 

 Crawford (1945) reviewed the history of 

 research on this species. Because it lends 

 itself well to experimental study and be- 

 cause the chicken is such an excellent lab- 

 oratory animal, hundreds of papers have 

 been written on it--according to Brumpt 

 (1949), more than 600 between 1935 and 

 1948. 



PLASMODIUM JUXTANUCLEARE 

 VERSIANI AND GOMES, 1941 



Disease : Chicken malaria. 



Hosts : Chicken. Versiani and Gomes 

 (1941) infected 1 of 3 turkeys experiment- 

 ally, but were unable to infect the duck, 

 guinea fowl, pigeon, canary, domestic 

 sparrow, tico tico, or 3 other species of 

 wild birds. 



Location : Erythrocytes. The exo- 

 erythrocytic stages are in endothelial cells. 



Geographic Distribution : South Amer- 

 ica (Brazil), Mexico. 



Morphology : This species has been 

 described from Minas Gerais, Brazil by 

 Versiani and Gomes (1941, 1943) and from 

 Chiapas, Mexico by Beltran (1941a, 1943). 

 The gametocytes and schizonts are round 



