LEISHMANIA TROPICA 673 



age. He found in the spleen, liver, and bone marrow in such 

 cases an organism microscopically indistinguishable from the 

 Leishmania donovani. The disease is very widespread, and 

 occurs along the whole of the south and east littorals of the 

 Mediterranean, in Portugal, Greece, Sicily, and in Italy as far 

 north as Rome, in the Soudan and Abyssinia. The organism 

 can be cultivated on" Novy and MacNeal's medium, which was 

 modified by Nicolle as follows : 



Agar carefully washed to remove salts, 14 grms. ; sea salt, 6 grras. ; 

 water, 900 c.c. ; sterilise in autoclave and tube ; melt tubes, cool to 

 50 C., and add to each one-third of its volume of whole rabbit blood 

 removed aseptically from the heart ; keep tubes in store in dark. 



The cultures present characters similar to those observed by 

 Rogers and Leishman in the other Leishmaniae. Unlike the 

 Leishmania donovani, the organism does not grow in citrated 

 spleen pulp. It has been found that the organism can be 

 successfully inoculated in the dog, monkey, rabbit, guinea-pig, 

 and rabbit by intrahepatic and intraperitoneal injection of spleen 

 pulp from fatal human cases, and Novy and MacNeal have pro- 

 duced the disease by inoculation with massive doses of cultures. 

 The fact that animals cannot be infected with the Leishmania 

 donovani, and the further fact that the disease is apparently 

 confined to young children, led Nicolle to look upon the organism 

 as a separate species to which he gave the name Leishmania 

 infantum. The infection of the dog possesses the further signifi- 

 cance that this animal may be the channel through which children 

 become infected, for in most regions where the disease prevails, 

 there occurs a disease of dogs which may be either of an acute 

 or chronic character, and which is apparently due to an identical 

 organism. Although at present the means by which children 

 may become infected from the dog is not definitely determined, 

 suspicion attaches to the dog flea (culex cerraticeps). 



Leishmania Tropica. In various tropical and sub-tropical 

 regions (India, Central Asia and the East, Northern Africa, 

 Southern Russia, Turkey, South America, West Indies) there is 

 widely prevalent a variety of very intractable chronic ulceration 

 which goes by various names in different parts of the world 

 Delhi sore, tropical ulcer, Aleppo boil, etc. The work of J. H. 

 Wright first showed that a protozoal parasite is concerned in the 

 etiology of the condition. In the discharge from the ulcer and 

 in sections of a portion of tissue excised from a case coming 

 from Armenia, Wright observed great numbers of round or oval, 

 sharply defined bodies, 2 to 4 ^ in diameter. When stained by 



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