$64 Sleeping Sickness 



infective organisms from the blood of the healthy persons 

 newly entering it, may remove most of the danger. 



The importance of undertaking radical measures for the 

 suppression of the disease may be imagined when it is under- 

 stood that in the last few years no less than a half -million of 

 the natives of the infected districts have died of sleeping 

 sickness. 



AMERICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS. 

 TRYPANOSOMA CRUZI (CHAGAS). 



Human trypanosomiasis in America is extremely rare and 

 does not assume the form of sleeping sickness. The occur- 

 rences, thus far reported, have been in Brazil, where a disease 



Fig. 194. Conorhinus megistus (female), the insect host and distributing 

 agent of Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas). 



of childhood, characterized by fever, anemia, edema, enlarge- 

 ment of the lymphatic nodes, liver, and spleen, and ending in 

 convulsions and death, goes by the name of "Apilacao." 

 In the peripheral blood of i case of this affection Chagas* 

 found a trypanosome which he describes as Trypanosoma 



* "Archives fur Schiffs u. Trop. Hyg.," 1909, H. 4; "Abstract Cen- 

 tralblatt. f. Bakt. etc. Ref.," 1909, xuv, 639; also "Ref. Bull. del'Inst. 

 Pasteur," 1910, vin, 373. 



