CHAPTER XXXIII. 



BLOOD DISEASES. 



AX^MIA— SURRA. 



A FATAL form of anaemia has been observed on the Continent 

 of Europe, in India, and Burmah. Some observers state tliat it 

 is due to a fine bacillus in the blood, and tliat it is infectious ; 

 whilst Evans, Burke, Steel, and Lingard, who have studied it in 

 India, where it is well-known under the name of Sueea, have 

 discovered that it is due to the presence of hrematozoa — the 

 Trypanosoma — in the blood of the affected animals, — horses, 

 mules, camels, elephants, donkeys. The haematozoa are also 

 found in rats and bandicoots, and in honour of its discoverer, 

 Evans, it is now called Hcematomonas Evanse. 



Evans, when he first discovered the parasite, thought it was a 

 spirillum, but further examination convinced him that it 

 belonged to the animal kingdom, presenting when fresh and 

 active an apparently round body, tapering in front to form a 

 neck, and terminating in a blunt head, and posteriorly a 

 tapering tail, extending from which is a long slender lash. He 

 also states that at the head end there appeared in one or two 

 cases a circlet of pseudopods, and as the body slowly died in 

 serum it gave the appearance of flattening out. After watching 

 carefully all the forms and movements of the parasite, he con- 

 cluded that on each side of the body there existed two pin-like 

 papillae, one near the neck and the other close to where the tail 

 began ; but he only observed them in a very few instances, and 

 supposed they were of the nature of pseudopods. 



The parasite is very active in its movements, with an undu- 

 latory eel-like motion, moving generally with head foremost, 

 but occasionally in the direction of the tail lash, when, as Captain 

 Appleton, A.V.D., describes it, tugging at and worrying a red 

 corpuscle : they thus attack and disintegrate the red corpuscles. 



