INDIA. 239 



cutta, Capt. Seward Rogers, I. M.S., professor of path- 

 ology, was kind enough to show mo under the micro- 

 scope the parasite which has been shown to be the cause 

 of this strange disease. It was discovered by Leish- 

 nian and Donovan, and has been classified by Laveran 

 and Mesnil under the name of 



PIROPLASMA DONOVANI. 



This newly discovered parasite has attracted a great 

 deal of attention, and among the numerous articles de- 

 scriptive of it I will only refer to the article on Piro- 

 plasmosis by Captain Donovan, published in the '"An- 

 nual Eeport and Statistics of the Government General 

 Hospital Madras, for the Year 1903." And a very im- 

 portant monograph, "A Preliminary Report on a Para- 

 site Found in Persons Suffering from Enlargement of 

 the Spleen' in India," by Lieut. S. R. Christophers, 

 M.B., I.S.M., a government publication. 



Captain Donovan, in the article referred to, gives a 

 short historv of his discoverv, from which I will a'ive 

 here some extracts. In speaking of piroplasmosis he 

 says : "Under this head I have classified a new disease 

 prevalent in Madras; the symptoms are those of so- 

 called chronic malaria. ... I had noticed many 

 cases of chronic irregular pyrexia, with enlargement of 

 the spleen, and occasionally of the liver, bronchitis, 

 edema of the feet, subcutaneous hemorrhages, chiefly 

 of the petechial type, diarrhea of a dysenteric nature 

 and cancrum oris. The treatment was most unsatis- 

 factory, no drug having the least beneficial effect." 



Captain Donovan doubted the malarial character of 

 the disease and at once made a thorough examination 

 of postmortem specimens. "With a view to remove 

 this doubt I attended the postmortems and took smears 

 of blood from the spleens of patients said to have died 

 of chronic malaria. On the first day, April 9, 1903, I 

 found, in a slide containing such a smear, numerous 

 peculiar round and oval ring-like little bodies, with 



