240 AROUND THE WORLD VIA INDIA. 



two masses of chromatin situated in opposite poles. 

 Convinced as I was of their parasitic nature, I could 

 not. however, refer them to any group of protozoa, I 

 thought I had discovered the long-sought-for resting 

 stage form of the malarial parasite in man, but on per- 

 ceiving the same bodies in two other cases on April 23 

 and 24, 1903, I changed my view and considered that 

 thev might be postmortem degenerations of the nuclei 

 •of the splenic pulp cells. On June 15, 1903, I received 

 the British Medical Journal of May 30, of the same 

 year, and in it, on page 1,252, was an account by Major 

 Leishman. E.A.M.C., of organisms identical with mine. 

 I at once recognized the similarity of what Leishman 

 called degenerations of the trypanosomata, to the bodies 

 found by me in the spleen blood of the three cadavers 

 above mentioned." 



On June 17. 1903, Captain Donovan punctured the 

 spleen of a boy suffering from this type of fever and 

 found in it bodies identical with those found post- 

 mortem. The results of this examination were pub- 

 lished in the British Medical Journal, July 12, the same 

 year. On September 23 he sent a slide containing 

 these bodies to the Pasteur Institute, where they were 

 carefully examined by Laveran and Mesnil and named 

 in honor of their discoverer Piroplasma donovani. 



A large clinical experience has demonstrated the 

 direct, etiologic relationship of this parasite with the 

 splenic affection in question. The parasite is not found 

 in the peripheral blood and, for diagnostic purposes, 

 blood has to be obtained from the spleen by puncturing 

 it. It is in this organ that the micro-organism is found 

 in greatest abundance. Puncture of the spleen for 

 diagnostic purposes is not entirely devoid of danger; 

 there is, at least, one case on record in which the punc- 

 ture gave rise to fatal internal hemorrhage (Donovan, 

 Case 24). The presence of this parasite in the splenic 

 blood furnishes absolute proof of the nature of the 

 splenic enlargement and settles the differential diagno- 



