200 



africanus, Newst., was the carrier of the disease and whether the 

 gecko served as a reservoir. P. minutus only bites man in the hot 

 season and feeds exclusively during the cool season on hibernating 

 geckos. The authors have demonstrated that P. minutus africanus not 

 only feeds upon this gecko, but also bites man, and they have been 

 able to prepare, from 15'7 per cent, of geckos examined, pure cultures 

 of a Leptomonas resembling that obtained from cultures of oriental sore. 



Sergent (E.) & Foley (H.). De la periode de latence du spirilla chez 

 le Pou infects de fievre recurrente. [On the latent period of the 

 Spirilla in Lice infected with recurrent fever.] — C. R. Acad. Sci., 

 Paris, clix, no. 1, July 6th 1914, pp. 119-122. 



The blood of convalescents from recurrent fever is virulent during 

 the whole of the first period of apyrexia, though it contains no visible 

 spirilla. It has been shown that the louse is the carrier, but the most 

 careful examination of the liquid matter obtained from crushed lice 

 which had been fed from one to eight days previously on a fever case, 

 and which was readily capable of infecting a monkey, failed to disclose 

 any formed bodies. In fresh series of experiments on 45 lice, fed once 

 on a fever patient, spirilla were only found on the eleventh day, and 

 in twelve lice only five were found from the twelfth to the fourteenth 

 day. After twice feeding three were found in six lice after five hours, 

 one in six lice after 24 hours, none in 34 lice between the second and 

 tenth days after feeding, and from the eleventh to the sixteenth days 

 only five were found in 20 lice examined. Spirilla were also found in 

 another series up to the 25th day after the" last infective meal. In a 

 fourth series over 500 lice were well fed once on a fever patient, the 

 feeding continued on healthy subjects, they were then crushed in 

 batches at intervals and monkeys inoculated with the extract on 

 successive days up to eleven and it was shown that during the first 

 eight days following the infective meal, though no spirilla were present, 

 the extract was infective, and 122 lice of this batch showed no spirilla, 

 even on the eleventh day. The experiments are regarded as proving 

 conclusively that the virus of recurrent fever exists in an active form 

 in the louse for at least eight days after infection, in spite of the fact 

 that no organisms, visible to the microscope, can be found in the liquid 

 from their bodies during this period. 



Porta (A..). Dermatosi occasionale nell'uomo dovuta ad un acaro 



(Liponyssus lohatus). [Occasional human dermatitis due to an 

 Acarid.]— Zoo?. Anzeiger, Berlin, xUv, no. 11, 7th July 1914, 

 pp. 481-482. 



A laboratory servant in charge of a number of specimens of Vesperugo 

 noctula was compelled to handle every individual bat and to feed them 

 with chopped-up meat. After about three weeks he was attacked 

 by a slight pruritus of the fore-arm, which subsequently spread to 

 the upper-arm, shoulders and breast, and ultimately to the whole body, 

 with the exception of the feet, hands and head. The patient had 

 no fever and was not otherwise ill, and it was discovered that the 

 trouble was caused by an Acarid, identified by Berlese as Liponyssus 

 lohatus, Kolenati. The skin-trouble strongly resembled that occasion- 

 ally produced in man by Pediculoides ventricosus. 



