March 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



371 



are next found as adults coiled in lymph 

 glands. The enormous mass of embryos 

 produced by the females blockade locally 

 the lymph vessels and the resulting lymph 

 stasis leads mechanically to dilatation of 

 the tissues and increase in the size of parts 

 which shows itself as varicose glands, chy- 

 luria, or elephantiasis. After brief refer- 

 ence to other species which are only insuf- 

 ficiently known, reference was made to the 

 occurrence of these forms in the western 

 hemisphere and to their presence also in 

 various parts of the United States. The 

 auther emphasized the need of careful 

 studies on the anatomy of both adult and 

 larva to enable the diagnosis of various 

 species, and on the life history and trans- 

 mitting agents to explain the spread of the 

 parasite and the means of prevention. At- 

 tention was also called to the relations of 

 these forms to various domestic and wild 

 animals as facultative hosts and possible 

 means therein of the multiplication and 

 spread of species, while the advisability of 

 search for the embryo forms in the blood 

 and the need of more detailed and accurate 

 knowledge of the pathological changes in- 

 duced in the human body were noted. 



After brief discussion of the morphology 

 of the Trypanosomes their occurrence in a 

 pathogenic role was discussed for the 

 nagana, or tsetse-fly, disease of Africa, the 

 surra of India, China and the east, the 

 dourine of horses in the Circum-Mediter- 

 ranean region, and the mal de caderas 

 among horses on the Pampas of South 

 America. Button in 1901 discovered a re- 

 lated species in the blood of a European 

 who had been resident on the Gambia River 

 in Africa, and the relative frequency of 

 such cases together with their distribution 

 over the territory bordering on the Gambia 

 and Congo was noted. The same form was 

 discovered by Castellani in 1903 in the 

 cerebro-spinal fluid of negroes suffering 

 from 'sleeping sickness' and gave the key 



to the etiology of that disease. The life 

 history of these forms has not yet been 

 elucidated unless the recent work of the 

 Koch expedition to Africa has succeeded 

 in solving it. It is reasonably clear, how- 

 ever, that these organisms pass through one 

 phase in the life-cycle in the body of some 

 transmitting agent, which is probably a 

 blood-sucking insect. The discovery by 

 MacNeal and Novy of a method by which 

 such forms may be cultivated in the labora- 

 tory marks a great advance and has been 

 successfully used to detect the presence of 

 forms not demonstrable in preparations of 

 the blood itself. It has not availed as yet 

 to furnish any method of treatment for the 

 diseases produced by the organism. The 

 phase represented in such cultures is un- 

 doubtedly only the asexual. A brief dis- 

 cussion followed of related forms, such as 

 the Spirochmta of the owl studied by 

 Schaudinn, of the species present in syph- 

 ilitic lesions and of the Leishman-Donovan 

 bodies ; and the importance which these ob- 

 servations have, though incomplete, was 

 pointed out in indicating the life history 

 and pathological significance of the group. 

 The author also indicated the necessity of 

 study to determine the intermediate hosts 

 which subserve various parasites, to secure 

 more perfect knowledge of normal blood, 

 and emphasized the value of more general 

 and precise examinations of the excreta 

 and body fluids which would be likely to 

 disclose the presence of other organisms 

 of this type as yet unsuspected. 



The Practical Results of Reed's Findings 

 on Yellow Fever Transmission: J. H. 

 White. 



1. For the first time since Reed, Lazear 

 and Carroll did their great work in Cuba, 

 the opportunity offered, in 1905, in the 

 city of New Orleans, to demonstrate on a 

 scale of such magnitude as must needs be 

 impressive, the true value of that work. 



