THE SPIKOCH.'ETE OP EGYPTIAN BELAPSING FEVER 71 



(d) Ou Jaiuuiry '21, aiiuthei- batch of nine lice was fed in the morning on a patient 

 showing a fair number of spirochtetes in his blood. One of these, a well-gorged insect, was 

 dissected and examined piecemeal with negative results. The remaining eight were fed on 

 monkey 3 {vide infra). They were removed from the animal after feeding, and next morning 

 w'ure all found dead, probably owing to the coldness of the night. 



(e) On January 30, another batch of lice w'as fed ou monkey 1, in the morning, when the 

 animal's temperature was 104-4 ¥., and spirochtetes were present in its blood. Several fed 

 well. A solitary louse was fed in the evening and kept separate from the others, all, 

 however, being maintained at a moist temperature of 37 C. Unfortunately, on January 31, 

 all were found dead. 



Indeed, the great difficulty was to keep the lice alive. Three days was the longest 

 period they ever survived, and then only when kept at 37' C. in glass jars containing pieces 

 of paper which had been soaked in human blood. If they died during the night they were 

 usually too dried up in the morning to be of any use for dissection. 



(/) Monkey No. 3 {Gercopithecus richer). — ^As already noted under d, eight lice which had Experiment 

 feasted on a patient were fed on this monkey on January 29. No infection resulted. °" * ""^"key 



Uniform failure, then, marked these lice experiments, and in part this may be due to the 

 small number of insects employed at any one time. They were only intended as 

 preliminary investigations, but, owing to the loss of the strain and the difiliculty experienced 

 in keeping the lice alive, are all that one has to present. 



(3) Ticks. — A few feeding experiments, with subsequent dissection, and, in one instance, 

 the inoculation of emulsified tissues into a monkey, were conducted with Ornithodoros 

 savignyi, both nymphs and adults, obtained from Kordofau through the kindness of 

 Captain Cummins. 



As the results were entirely negative, they need scarcely be described in detail. 



These, then, are the experimental data accumulated, and it will be seen that there is 

 little enough to go on in coming to any conclusion. For all that, there are certain 

 signiiicant findings which may be considered. 



One may say at once that, as a result of observing the disease in gerbils and a monkey, inferences 

 and noting the effects of sub-inoculations, one was inclined to regard this fever as possibly '°'" . 



o X- J experiments 



due to a specific and hitherto undescribed spirochaete. Captain Bousfield, from his clinical 

 studies, wrote as though it was due to Spirochaita recur rentis, but I informed him that I was 

 unable to agree with this view of the case. Shortly afterwards I had an opportunity of 

 showing specimens of spirochsetes and giving details of the work to Captain Mackie, I. M.S., 

 who haj)peued to be passing through Khartoum on his way from Uganda. He was inclined 

 to agree with me, but, of course, it was difficult to say anything definite as a result of such 

 meagre and incomplete observations. 



It is worthy of note that Dreyer of Cairo,'' about the time this work was proceeding, 

 published a paper in which he suggested that the spirochaste of Egyptian relapsing fever 

 might be a distinct entity. He was unable, however, to advance any proof in favour 

 of this hypothesis. 



.While I was writing this paper, a most interesting account of a form of relapsing fever 

 in South Oran appeared under the joint authorship of Sergent and Foley. ^ They give spirMhutu 

 an excellent account of the symptomatology, etiology and epidemiology of this human ^"''''"'''" 

 spirochaetosis, and conclude, on what seem to be good grounds, that this Algerian 

 spirochaetal fever is distinct from any form hitherto described, and is caused by a special 

 spirochaete which they propose to name Spirochseta berbera, now sp. 



One would refer the reader to their paper for full details, but it is worthy of note that 



