526 TREPONEMATA AND SPIROCHETA 



Treponema Duttoni. Synonym. Spirocheta duttoni. 



Ross and Milne, 1 studying South African tick fever, observed an 

 organism in the blood of their patients which they called Spirocheta 

 duttoni. Dutton and Todd 2 confirmed the discovery. The disease 

 runs a course clinically like European relapsing fever, but the 

 paroxysms usually number four or five with corresponding periods of 

 apyrexia before the onset of convalescence. 



Morphology. Treponema duttoni (Spirocheta duttoni) is somewhat 

 thicker and longer than Treponema recurrentis; it measures about 

 0.45 to 0.50 micron in diameter and from 24 to 30 microns in length. 

 The motility is similar to that of the organism of European relapsing 

 fever. Noguchi 3 has grown Treponema duttoni in pure culture. 



Immunity. Rats are readily infected with the organism; those 

 which have recovered from infection with Treponema duttoni are 

 easily infected with Treponema recurrentis and vice versa. They 

 are refractory to a second injection of the same organism, indicating 

 that the immunity conferred by one Treponema is not protective 

 against infection with Treponemata of another type. 



Ross 4 found that the horse tick (Ornithodorus moubata) would 

 transmit the disease from man to monkey, provided the insect bit the 

 man during, or very shortly before, the febrile period. The organism 

 may be demonstrated in the ovaries and eggs of female ticks which 

 have fed upon man. This appears to be a case of true hereditary 

 transmission; the organism is transmissible by the adult and larval 

 insects, and through the eggs as well. 



Treponema Pertenue. Synonyms. Spirillum pertenue. Treponema 

 pallidulum. 



Castellan i 5 has reported the constant association of an organism 

 which he called Spirillum pertenue, in frambesia tropica (Yaws). 

 Frambesia is a specific infectious tropical disease characterized anato- 

 mically by peculiar specific granulomatous eruptions. The disease, 

 like syphilis, presents three stages: (1) a primary lesion, which is a 

 papule situated at the site of infection this papule becomes indurated 

 and may ulcerate; (2) a generalized eruption, papular in character, 

 which gives rise to characteristic granulomata; this may appear 

 after the primary lesion has healed the disease frequently ends at 



1 British Med. Jour., 1904, ii, 1453. 



2 Ibid., 1905, ii, 1295. 



3 Jour. Exp. Med., 1912, xvi, 202. 



4 British Med. Jour., February 4, 1905. 



5 Lancet, August, 1905; British Med. Jour., November, 1905. 



