THE SPIROCHAETES 599 



The bodies are well seen in smears stained with the 

 Leishman stain. In kala-azar, smears may be made with 

 material obtained by splenic puncture ; in Oriental sores, 

 with scrapings from the ulcer. 



Spirochaetosis * 



Diseases caused by infection with spirocliaetes. The spirochaetes 

 are delicate, undulating, or somewhat spirillar, filiform parasites 

 occurring in the tissues or in the blood of man, mammals, birds, 

 shell-fish, etc. The filaments taper to a point at the ends, are 

 flexible and motile, coiling and uncoiling, are described as having 

 two nuclear masses, and some possess an undulating membrane, 

 flagella, etc., but in the smaller forms no definite structure can 

 be made out. Spirochaetes are frequently regarded as protozoa, 

 but Dobell, in particular, considers them to be more related to 

 the bacteria. Their frequent transmission by specific inter- 

 mediaries and the periodicity of some of the affections caused by 

 them certainly suggest a protozoan, rather than a bacterial, 

 nature. 



The nomenclature of the spirochaete forms is in a chaotic 

 condition. Spirochaetes are said to multiply by longitudinal 

 fission, while fission in bacteria is transverse (Dobell states 

 that multiplication is always by transverse, but multiple, fission ; 

 see p. 17) ; they react in some cases to drugs (e.g. salvarsan), 

 like trypanosomes, are much more sensitive to the action of 

 immune sera than bacteria are, and are transmitted by insects. 

 Noguchi has cultivated certain spirochaetes of the mouth and 

 relapsing fever by a method similar to that which he employed 

 for syphilis (p. 606). For the saprophytic spirochaetes a small 

 quantity of oxygen is required ; for the blood spirochaetes absolute 

 anaerobic sis is necessary, as in the case of syphilis. 



Schaudinn believed that many so-called spirochaetes may be 

 connected with the trypanosomes, and in the case of a Halteridium 

 parasite of the little owl (Athene noctua), claimed to have shown 

 that it is a stage of a trypanosome (T. noctuce) which is dis- 

 seminated by the common gnat. His observations have not been 

 confirmed, and Novy and McNeal believe that Schaudinn was 



1 See Nuttall, Journ. Roy. Inst. Pub. Health, xvi, 1908, p. 449. 



