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incriminate these three species by experimentally infecting laboratory- 

 bred sand flies, feeding them on kala-azar patients or infected 

 hamsters, and allowing them to refeed on uninfected hamsters. The 

 rates of infection were 85.3%, <2%, and 0% for P. chinensis , 

 P. sergenti , and P. perturbans , respectively. A small percentage of 

 these infected flies took a second blood meal, but transmission was 

 unsuccessful. Similar studies were conducted by Sun et aj_. (1936) and 

 Sun and Wu (1937) in which 7 of 21 P. chinensis , collected in houses 

 with cases of visceral leishmaniasis, were infected with 

 promasitgotes. Successful transmission to hamsters by the bite of 

 P. chinensis was finally reported by Feng and Chung (1941). 



In the Cevennes, in southern France, Rioux and colleagues 

 accumulated overwhelming epidemiological evidence regarding the 

 suspected role of P. ariasi Tonnoir as the vector of infantile 

 visceral leishmaniasis. Not until 1979, however, did they confirm 

 their suspicions by transmitting the disease to a dog by the bite of 

 an experimentally-infected sand fly (Rioux, et aj_., 1979). 



Leishmania major (cutaneous leishmaniasis, wet sore). It is 

 unclear when L major was first transmitted experimentally by bite of 

 a sand fly because early workers recognized only one leishmanial 

 species that was divided into two subspecies, "minor" and "major" 

 causing "dry" and "wet" oriental sore, respectively. Perfil'ev (1968) 

 claimed that the first successful transmission of cutaneous 

 leishmaniasis by bite of a sand fly was accomplished in 1941 by 

 Kryukova in experiments with gerbils. Laboratory-bred P. papatasi 

 were infected with cutaneous leishmaniasis by feeding on a histocytoma 

 on a gerbil's ear and were subsequently allowed to take a second blood 



