82 



SPIROCHETOSIS OF SUDANESE FOWLS 



Kxperiments 

 in culture 



Observations 

 M night 



from the red cells. (Plate III., fig. 3). In all probability, beyond this " schizogony-like " 

 stage there is nothing more which can be made out. 



One thought that possibly the use of culture media might help in solving the problem, 

 and, accordingly, blood containing spirochaetes or bodies was added to tubes of Novy, 

 MacNoal and Nicolle's media. The spirochaetes remained alive and active for 12 days, 

 thereafter becoming sluggish. By the fourteenth day the majority were dead and had lost 

 their staining affinities. In one instance a parasite was found to have entered a red cell. 

 No multiplication was observed. 



The intra-corpuscular bodies remained wholly unchanged even when their host 

 cells degenerated. 



Little of fresh interest has been made out in preparations stained, as formerly, by the 

 Leishman and Giemsa methods, but Plate III., fig. 7, shows apparently a certain 

 intimate relationship between the inclusions and the spirochaetes. This is specially true of 

 the top part in fig. 7 and one of the corpuscles shown under fig. 6. In the former the 

 suggestion afforded is that the spirochaetes are entering and coiling up in the red cells. 

 In the latter, the appearance suggests an included spirochaete with a portion of one end 

 still free. I now think these ai-e accidental appearances, but they serve to perplex one, 

 and confuse the issue. Although I have found it impossible to demonstrate the entry of 

 the spirochetes, as such, into the red cells and the subsequent formation of encysted 

 forms exactly like the bodies, I have, as mentioned in the last Eeport and in this 

 paper, seen spirochajtes enter the erythroblasts, a fact which also tended to conceal 

 what I now believe to be the true course of the cycle. 



Thinking that the red cell invasion might have something to do with the habits of 

 the tick vectors and therefore might only take place at night I repeated observations 

 previously made at night, but employed, in addition, the dark-field method. Captain 

 Archibald kindly assisted me, but though we worked at midnight and at other hours, no 

 fresh light was thrown on the problem. 



Additional evidence that the corpuscular inclusions were in reality stages in the 

 spirochaetal life-cycle was, however, obtained by the discovery, on several occasions, that, 

 when the peripheral blood exhibited only bodies, sections of the liver, and sometimes 

 also of the spleen, showed abundant spirochaetes. In this connection the following cases 

 may be cited. 



1. Fowl. White hen. Brought iu from market in extremis and the peripheral blood on examination found 

 to have a huge intra-corpuscular infection. No spirochaites could bo found in the peripheral blood nor were any 

 jiresent in smears made from the lung and bone-marrow in which bodies were numerous. Unfortunately, lilms 

 were not made from the liver, spleen or kidney, but these organs were stained by the Levaditi-JIanouelian 

 method and spirochietes were found in the liver "and kidney though not iu the spleen and lung. In the kidney 

 sections the red cell infection was apparently also visible. A point of much interest, the significance of which 

 was not recognised at the time, was that many of the spirochietes were fragmented or breaking up into black 

 granules 



2. Chick iV. On March 6, 1909, this small, clean, healthy bird was inoculated, subcutaneously, with a few 

 drops of peripheral blood from another chick which showed a very heavy endoglobular infection but no 

 spirochietes. 



March 9. A few bodies found for the first time. 



March 10. None found to-day, but gaps in the corpuscles noted. These suggested spaces previously occupied 

 by the inclusions. 



March 11. A few small bodies again present and some gaps still visible. 



March 17. A great increase in the number of bodies had taken place. " Spore "' forms present. Multiple 

 infection of red colls. Bodies of varying size and shape. 



March 18. Literally, a huge infection which presumably caused the death of the bird, though post mortem 

 a greatly distended gall bladder was present. 



The red corpuscles of the heart's blood frequently showed many bodies close to their peripheries, there being 

 an apparent gap in the corpuscular envelope where the body impinged against it. This lack of continuity in the 

 corpuscular envelope must not be confounded with the gaps or spaces in the corpuscular substance mentioned 

 al)0vc. The liver, examined by the Levaditi-Manouelian method showed undoubted spirochaetes lying both in 

 and on the hepatic cells. 



