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according to Doerr, every summer fills the military hospitals in 

 South Herzegovina and Dalmatia to overflowing, attacking and 

 rendering temporarily unfit for duty at least 66 per cent, of the 

 Austrian troops during the first hot weather, besides others, 

 presents in many respect a marked resemblance to dengue and 

 Mediterranean " simple continued fever," although according to 

 Lieutenant-Colonel C. Birt, R.A.M.C., the actual identity of the 

 three diseases is not yet established.* " Pappataci fever," as the 

 disease conveyed by Phlebotomus papatasii is now known, is caused 

 by an ultra-microscopic, " invisible " virus, which circulates in the 

 blood during the first day of the fever, but apparently disappears 

 from the circulation by the end of the second day. It is significant 

 that Doerr's investigations, so far as they have yet been carried, tend 

 to show that a certain interval (about eight days) must elapse 

 before a " Pappataci," which has sucked the blood of a patient 

 suffering from the fever, becomes capable of conveying the infection 

 to a healthy individual. f 



Owing to the small amount of material yet received by the 

 Museum, it is at present impossible to say how many species of 

 Phlebotomus occur in Africa. The existence of species in Uganda 

 and Egypt has already been mentioned ; in the former case the 

 species is perhaps Phlebotomus duboscqi, Neveu-Lemaire (Plate I., 

 fig. 4), which, as stated below, was described from specimens 

 obtained from the region of Timbuctoo, French Sudan, and has 

 also been found in Ashanti and Southern Nigeria. The possibility 

 that the Egyptian species is the South European Ph. papatasii, 

 Scop., has been alluded to above, but in default of specimens for 

 comparison the question must for the moment remain undecided. 



* Of. Lieutenant-Colonel C. Birt, "Experimental Investigation of ' Simple Continued 

 Fever,' " Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1908, pp. 566-569. The 

 members of the Austrian commission incline to the view that the disease investigated 

 by them is identical with dengue. 



f Cf. " Das Pappatacifieber. Ein Endemisches Drei-Tage-Fieber im Adriatischen 

 Kiistengebiete Osterreich-Ungarns." By Drs. B. Doerr, K. Franz, and S. Taussig. 

 8vo, pp. iv. and 166. With 13 figures in the text, 2 plates, and 1 chart (Leipzig and 

 Vienna : Franz Deuticke, 1909). Cf. also, " A New Invisible Virus " (British Medical 

 Journal, December 5th, 1908, pp. 1706-1707). 



02 



