August 7, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



213 



tomus for its development but only for its 

 transfer to new hosts. Thus the Phlehotomus 

 appears to be merely a mechanical transmitter 

 of verruga, and not a true secondary host of 

 the organism. But it is probable that the gut 

 of the Phlehotomus favors the free liberation 

 of the infective stage of the organism, which 

 either penetrates thence to the salivary glands 

 or passes directly forward through the alimen- 

 tary canal, by regurgitation or otherwise, to 

 the pharynx and thus gains the proboscis. 



It seems demonstrated by the above findings 

 that these small rock lizards constitute at least 

 one reservoir of verruga. Whether snakes, 

 man or other mammals constitute additional 

 reservoirs of the disease remains to be deter- 

 mined. The writer puts forth the tentative 

 opinion, subject of course to future modifica- 

 tion, that lizards and possibly snakes, in other 

 words reptilian animals of cold blood, may yet 

 be found to constitute the sole reservoir of 

 verruga. It seems quite possible that Phleho- 

 tomus can not become infected with verruga 

 from the blood of mammals, but this point 

 needs careful investigation. 



As bearing on this view, it is to be noted 

 that no one has yet succeeded in making cul- 

 tures of the Bartonia bodies from human 

 blood, and that injections of mammalian blood 

 containing these bodies have given only nega- 

 tive results thus far. The verruga organism 

 might be looked upon as outside its natural 

 environment in mammalian blood, but at home 

 in reptilian hosts. Nevertheless it is quite 

 possible that it has been overlooked in the ex- 

 periments after making the injections of Bar- 

 tonia containing blood referred to. 



The above rods and granules have also been 

 found by the writer in the bone marrow, liver 

 and spinal cord of the lizards, as shovm by 

 smears from these organs. In the blood of the 

 lizards the rods and granules are often free in 

 the plasma but frequently in or attached to 

 the surface of the red corpuscles. They stain 

 with Giemsa characteristically brownish, some- 

 times bluish or reddish, exactly as do the Bar- 

 tonia. If these organisms are not identical 

 with the Bartonia, they are certainly very sim- 

 ilar morphologically and evidently bear a con- 



stant relation to verruga. It has not been pos- 

 sible as yet to attempt cultures of these bodies 

 with the view of demonstrating their nature, 

 owing to lack of both time and facilities. 

 They may easily turn out to be the bacillus 

 paratyphoid B, in large part at least, but in 

 any case they seem linked with Bartonia in 

 some thus-far mysterious relation. 



There is quite a large possibility that the 

 Bartonia may prove to be simply the lizard- 

 blood bodies parasitized by the verruga organ- 

 ism proper. From 1900 to 1902 Barton demon- 

 strated the bacillus paratyphoid B in all his 

 verruga eases, and with it he produced the 

 fever and eruption in both dogs and mules. 

 Since this bacillus is so constantly present in 

 verruga cases it seems certain to the writer 

 that it bears some important relation to the 

 disease. As it has been cultivated with ease, 

 while Bartonia has not, it may well be the case 

 that the latter is simply an infected form of 

 it which has lost its reproductive power. In 

 such event the verruga organism does not 

 reach the infective stage until the Bartonia 

 containing it has broken up naturally and dis- 

 appeared. Barton's animal experiments seem 

 strongly to indicate that the bacillus paraty- 

 phoid B carries verruga infection. 



Similar cases of the constant attendance of 

 certain bacilli upon diseases of obscure etiol- 

 ogy, as yellow-fever, hog-cholera, etc., are well 

 known. It may well be that such bacilli are 

 infected with the respective ultramicroscopic 

 organisms of these diseases and play an im- 

 portant role in their carriage. 



Whether the intracorpuscular bodies found 

 by Laveran and Carini in the blood of lizards 

 are of the same type as the present rods and 

 granules remains to be seen. It would seem 

 quite likely that the two may be closely re- 

 lated. The present bodies, which are only ten- 

 tatively assumed to be Bartonia or to meta- 

 morphose abnormally into the latter, exhibit 

 much resemblance to Theileria. The granule 

 stage also approaches the marginal-point stage 

 of Anaplasma, and is very similar to the 

 stages figured by Anderson for the Eocky 

 Mountain spotted-fever organism, which is 

 probably not a Piroplasma. 



