FALLACIES AND PUZZLES IN BLOOn EXAMINATION 125 



seen ; (d) a dark blue central part, shaped like a crescent, containing a small circular 

 body, with a deep blue central point within the arms of the crescent. None of the bodies 

 on the slide showed any signs of chromatin. Since the above was written I have found 

 them in human blood in a case of urticaria without any fever [vide page 362). Major 

 Howard Ensor has also come across them in a case of fever and in a splenic puncture 

 film from a case of supposed kala-azar. 



As regards parasites in animal blood, certain unidentified forms in frogs' blood claim Unidentified 

 attention. Thus there is one form found in this amphibian's red cells and described P*''^"^^ '" 



^ frogs blood 



by Button, Tod and Tobey. The appearance is that of more or less spherical chromatin 

 staining bodies, and recently Carini, who has been working with frogs' blood in Brazil, 

 has suggested that it represents an endoglobular stage in the life history of a trypanosome, 

 for he has found and figured such a condition. Certainly at an early stage the small 

 inclusions he illustrates resemble the bodies described by the Liverpool observers. I think, 

 however, that the so-called cytamoebae, at least in certain of their forms, which these latter 

 also discovered in frogs' blood in West Africa, are even more like Carini's early trj^anosome 

 stages, and also closely resemble, as I have mentioned elsewhere, some of the " after phase " 

 bodies in the blood of spirochaetal infected fowls. Other cytamoebae in the frog, however, 

 approximate to the " bacilloid " and bacillary bodies which Carini also found in 

 Leptodactylus ocellatiis. The first are little oval, blue-staining masses with a single 

 central chromatin dot, spherical or star-shaped, or two granules, one at either end, or 

 a splash of chromatin along their sides. They may be single and multiple, the latter being 

 apparently division forms. 



The bacillary forms are perhaps of greater interest. Kruse was the first to find them 

 in frogs caught in the neighbourhood of Paris, and their frequent presence in the red cells 

 of European frogs has been signalised by Labb6, Laveran, Ziemann and others. They look 

 for the most part like little bunches of bacilli irregularly arranged at one end of the 

 erythrocyte and having no connection with the nucleus. They may have a beaded 

 look or may appear almost like a tangled skein in a vacuoloid space. They may also look 

 like rods sticking out of a central dark-staining mass. Those found bj- Cai'ini are shorter 

 and thinner than those called Bacillus krusei and are believed to be specifically distinct but, 

 so far, I do not think anyone has come to a definite conclusion regarding any of these 

 bodies though they are apparently undoubtedly parasitic. The same is probably true of the 

 small spherical pink-staining (with Giemsa) bodies found in the red cells of the leather- 

 jacket fish of the Australian seas. Multiple infection of the red cells was, however, never 

 present, a point rather against their being protozoa. 



Another point to be borne in mind is that Probat of Muansa and Francis of Texas Free spores of 

 have found what seem to be the free spores of Sarcosporidia in the blood of animals. sanosponoia 



^ ^ in the blood 



These few notes on the less known human and animal blood parasites conclude 

 this paper. No one is better aware than I am how imperfect and incomplete it is ; but, for 

 the most part, it has been written as the outcome of practical experience, and if, with 

 the aid of the illustrations, it saves some from certain pitfalls into which the writer 

 has fallen, and helps others over the haematological stiles which bar the way to progress, it 

 will have served its purpose and not have been penned in vain. 



It has not been thought necessary, in a paper of this kind, to give references in detail, 

 as the article itself is intended, in some measure, to obviate the necessity of frequent 

 recourse to books and periodicals. 



