VETEBINARY NOTES 



349 



but has not bsea fully studied, and in looking through the available literature one found 

 that references to micro-filarise in the blood of equines were rare. 



Thanks to the courtesy of Mr. S. H. Gaiger, of the Indian Veterinary Department, 

 I have been able to study Lingard's^ paper, which gives a review of previous work, mentions 

 Wedl's F. equina and Sonsino's F. sanguinis eqid found in Egypt, Jakimoff's discovery of 

 filarial embryos in horse's blood, Mazzanti's similar discovery in the hepatic vessels of 

 a horse and a few other observations, but the whole is somewhat meagre, and, curiously 

 enough, Hutyra and Marek more or less ignore the subject. Lingard's own work describes 

 larval forms like those of F. perstans and F. nodurna which he found in the blood of 

 horses in India and which, from his account, were evidently not unlike that under 

 consideration. 



It was not, however, until I came across an interesting and illustrated paper by Fi/aria 

 Martini^ that I could place this micro-filaria. Martini's paper, however, left little doubt '^J-';f"-,'^l' ''''" 

 but that the filaria in question was no other than Filaria sanguinis equi africani which he 

 discovered in a barbary mare from Togo in the Berlin Zoological Gardens in 1902. His 

 photo-micrographs of this filaria show that it is practically identical with that under 

 discussion. Indeed, his Fig. 20 might almost have been taken from one of my slides. 

 In his paper he points out that the presence of the filaria in his case was unassociated with 

 illness or loss of weight, that the parasite measured between lOO^i and 1.50/( in length 

 by 4^ in breadth and that it possessed thick and thin ends. He describes its great activity 

 and its mechanical destruction of red corpuscles, its longevity in vitro and its pale unstained 

 areas, which closely correspond to those observed in the parasites of the pony from Uganda. 

 He regards these spots as remnants of an embryonal membrane. He points out how his 

 filaria differs from a pathogenic form previously found by Lange in the skin of the ear 

 muscle of a horse and he points out its resemblance to F. perstans so far as size, activity 

 and general appearance are concerned. 



He did not find the parasite in blood from the smaller peripheral vessels but only 

 in defibrinated blood taken from the jugular vein. It occurred in comparatively small 

 numbers, about one to every five drops of blood taken. 



This, however, and the fact that he described the body as finely granular are the 

 only points of diiierence I can perceive between his parasite and that under discussion, and, 

 considering that the animal in which he discovered it was living under very dissimilar 

 conditions to those obtaining when it became infected, one cannot lay any stress on 

 such variations. 



I think that this parasite is Filaria or, better, Micro-filaria sa7iguinis equi africani and, 

 so far as I can find out, it is the second occasion on which it has been observed.^ 



The infection was probably acquired in Uganda and is not of a pathogenic nature. Probability of 

 the chief interest attaching to it being possibly the somewhat close resemblance of this !" ^ j™^^ 

 embryo blood worm to the larval F. perstans which is such a common human parasite 

 in Uganda. That it is not F. perstans is evident enough. It possesses no retractile spicule, 

 it is smaller, its caudal end is not truncated and its spots do not correspond to those 

 of the perstans embryo. Still it would appear to be a parasite of the perstans class, and 

 doubtless the adult forms exist in situations similar to those in which the male and 

 female perstans were found by Daniels. 



' Lingard, A. (1905), Observalions on tlie Filarial Embryos found in the general ciirii/ation of the Equida: and 

 Bovidw, and their probnhlc Patholoyical Significance. London. 



- Martini, E. (1903), " Ueber eine Filaria sanguinis equi,'' Zcitsch. fur Hyg., etc. Vol. XLII., pp. 3.51-.352. 



'■' Mandel has quite recently described a very similar blood-filaria in a horse in Europe. Cent. f. Bakl., 

 Orig., December 17, 1911), Vol. .i/. No. 1. 



X 



