• • • 



XXVll 1 



Annual Address. 



| February, 1917. 



able to the growth of the parasite in cultures, and for reasons 

 which I have not time to go into, I came to the conclusion that 

 the homelv bed bug is the carrier of the disease. The fact 

 which had" by this time been established by Dr. Dodds Price 

 that two to four hundred yards i> a sufficient distance to remove 

 healthy lines from infected ones is sufficient to exclude a flying 

 insect such as a mosquito. I next took privilege leave to 

 Assam to search for the development of the parasite in bed bugs 

 from kala-azar infected houses, but only strained my eyes 

 without obtaining any positive result-. At this time Major 



Patton, I.M.S., of the Bacteriological Department, was placed on 



special duty to work at the subject in Madra and recognizing 

 that professorial duties do not leave sufficient time for such ai 

 investigation, I gladly left the field open to him. After some 

 two years' work he obtained development of the parasite up to 

 the flagellate stage in the digestive canal of heel bugs fed on 

 kala-azar patients with the parasites in their I >lood. Lt.-( Lionel 

 Cornwall, I.M.S., has recently confirmed these experiments, and 

 although the final proof of communirat ing the disease by mean 

 of infected bed bugs has not yet been famished (experiment 

 on human beings, such as were carried out in the case <>f malaria, 

 not being justifiable in the deadly kala-azar) -till the evidence 

 incriminating these insect- is sufficiently weighty to make it 

 desirable to wage war upon them wherever the disease is present 

 Cocoanut oil applied to the runs of the bugs on walls and to 

 the buttons of matresses, etc.. where they often hide, is a useful 

 measure for this purpose. As these insects can live for month- 

 without food, the way in which the infection clings to house 

 is well explained on my theory that thev are the carriers of 



the disease. 



The Cure of Kala-Azar. 



Lastly I come to the most important discovery regardifl 

 kala-azar, namely that of a reliable cure of this formerly v&y 

 deadly disease. The fact that eases in an i ielj advanced 



stage of emaciation occasionally take a sudden turn for the bette 



and eventually completely recover their health. -rly led me to 



feel morally certain that some day a carats treatment wouM 

 be discovered, and I have never o d to search for such a 

 method, although through having no hospital beds I have l>ee» 

 greatly handicapped in this part of mv work. Fortunately 



Surgeon -General Harri more especially at the Medical College 

 and a long succession of Resident Surgeons at the Europ< ?1 



General Hospital as well as my old friend 1 1 r. Dodds Price, ha* 

 from time to time been kind enough to allow me to trv variou 

 remedies which are too numerous to mention. Moreover, f 



the case of the closely parallel human trvposomiasis incliw 

 ing sleep.ng nekness of Africa, laboratory animals are •** 



infected, and many remedies have been found to have more 

 or less power to destroy the trypaaosomes in their blood. I 



