CHAPTEK LIV. 



PIROPLASMA BOVIS TEXAS FEVER AND PIROPLASMOSES IN 

 OTHER ANIMALS. 



PIROPLASMA BOVIS. 



Occurrence and Historical. Texas fever is a disease of cattle due 

 to a protozoan microorganism infecting the blood plasma and the 

 red blood corpuscles, and now generally known as Piroplasma bigem- 

 inum, or Babesia bigemina. The disease has been and is known 

 under a variety of names, such as splenic fever (this name, however, 

 is now more commonly used for anthrax), Spanish fever, Mexican 

 fever, Southern cattle fever, Australian tick fever, Tristeza, red water, 

 black water, hemoglobinuria of cattle, paludism of cattle, piroplas- 

 mosis of cattle, etc. The disease has undoubtedly existed in the old 

 world, where it was formerly known as wood and moor ill, for a long 

 time. It first attracted attention both in Europe and America about 

 the middle of the last century. At this time the disease was studied 

 by veterinarians in Russia and France, and also became the subject 

 of much inquiry in this country, when cattle coming from Texas 

 introduced the disease into Indiana and Illinois, where its ravages 

 became alarming, and when it likewise appeared in cattle brought from 

 the West to the slaughtering houses of New York. A commission 

 appointed in the latter State studied the disease and issued a report 

 in 1868. It described the symptomatology and pathology of the 

 disease correctly, but did not ascertain its cause. Later investigators 

 accused various bacteria of being the cause of the disease, but erro- 

 neously, as was subsequently shown. In 1888 Babes studied the dis- 

 ease in Roumania, and reported that he had discovered in the interior 

 of the red blood corpuscles of animals sick with hemoglobinuria 

 diplococci-like bodies which could be stained with methylene blue, 

 but which could be cultivated only with difficulty. Babes thought 

 that these diplococci-like bodies were neither bacteria nor protozoa, 

 but some organism intermediate between them. While Babes un- 

 doubtedly saw and correctly described the organisms causing Texas 

 fever in cattle, he was in error concerning their alleged cultural 

 properties, and had no correct conception of their mode of entrance 

 into the body of the infected animal, which he thought was through 

 the drinking water. The etiology of Texas fever was cleared up 

 completely in 1893 by Theobald Smith and Kilbourne. They saw 

 the infecting protozoa, described them correctly, and showed that the 



