SPIKOt'H.liTOSlS OF SUDANESE FOWLS 
51 
hut at that time thought that any such state must be of the nature of a corpuscular 
degenei'atiou. I knew that eoccoid bodies had been found in the blood after relapsing fever 
in man, and I also knew that these were stated to occur free in the plasma. 
.\t the early stage of the work I was not aware of von Prowazek’s observations on the 
invasion of the red corpuscles by Sp. galliiiarum, and indeed it was not until I had worked 
out the problem that I became acquainted with his researches. At this time also Breinl’s ' 
work on intra-corpuscular forms of Sp. duttoni had not been published, and for a time I went 
astray and was inclined to think that I had found a peculiar form of piroplasmosis in the 
fowl. There were many facts to favour such a view, hut I was never perfectly satisfied with 
its correctness, for, morphologically, many of the bodies would not answer to any known form 
of piroplasm and I could find no developmental stages in the ticks. 
Blood was collected, together with sterile citrate solution, in sterile glass tubes which 
were sealed and kept either at 37° C. or at laboratory temperature. The bodies either 
remained unchanged, and could easily he recognised after the lapse of three days, or they 
underwent the same change as in the ticks and bed-bugs, breaking up into small deeply- 
staining dots, which formed something like irregular and tiny rosettes. When bacterial 
contamination occurred the bodies speedily disappeared. 
1 had recourse to inoculation experiments. These sometimes failed, sometimes 
succeeded. In the former case I thought that I must have employed immune birds, Imt 
the fact that I was able to reproduce the condition in some of the inoculated birds helped 
to keep me from getting at the truth. Failure attended inoculation of gerhils and of a toad 
{Biifo rcgidaris ); I applied for assistance to several authorities, but without success. The 
condition seemed to puzzle everyone. Professor Laveran, from a study of stained prepara¬ 
tions, suggested that it might he a coccal invasion analogous to the bacillary invasion of the 
erythrocytes of frogs {Rana escxdcnta) first described by Kruse, and then l)y himself.^ A 
study of the drawings of this condition showed a certain similarity, hut I was unalde to 
subscribe to this hypothesis. 
On returning from leave in 1907, I set myself to solve the problem, and as I was 
approaching the solution Dr. Sambon decided the matter by declaring that these bodies, 
specimens of which I had given him, were really intra-corpuscular forms of the spirochaste. 
I had come to the same conclusion, especially since I had seen the papers of BreinF® and 
von Prowazek, but it was Sambon’s announcement which served to confirm my opinion 
and dispel my doubts. It is only strange that I should not have recognised this at an 
earlier date, but I now know that my failure was due to insufficient staining of the blood 
for spirochietes, to press of other work which prevented me working steadily at the subject 
and weighing the evidence I had collected, and also, in part, to lack of necessary intuition. 
IMoreover, although I ^ considered the question of any association of the condition with 
spirochmtosis, I was rather led astray by the following experiment in December, 1906. 
A hen, seemingly recovered from spirochmtosis, and apparently with no parasites in its 
blood, was put in a cage which contained a fowl suffering from the condition which has just 
been described. It was liable to be attacked by ticks and their progeny, and, indeed, ticks were 
fed on it in connection with work on spirochastosis. .\bout eight days after its recovery (?) from 
the latter I was surprised to find for the first time many of these curious intra-corpuscular 
Cultural 
experiments 
Inoculation 
experiments 
The correct 
conclusion 
' Breinl. A. (November 9th, 1907), “ On the Morphology and Life-History of Spirochceta duitoni,^' Annals 
of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, Series T.M., Vol. I., No. 3. 
- liaveran, A (May 13th, 1899), C. R. de la Soc. de liioL 
” hoc, cif. 
' Balfour. A. (November 9th, 1997), “ A Peculiar Blood Condition, probably Parasitic, in the Blood of 
Sudanese Fowls.” Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 
