﻿OBSERVATIONS UPON TREPONEMA PERTENU1S CASTEL- 

 LAN1 OF YAWS AND THE EXPERIMENTAL PRO- 

 DUCTION OF THE DISEASE IN MONKEYS. 



By P. M. Ashbubn and Charles F. Craig. 1 



(From the laboratory of the United States Army Board for the Study of 



Tropical Diseases, Division Hospital, Manila, P. I. and the 



Biological Laboratory of the Bureau of Science. ) 



PART I. 

 HISTORICAL. 



Schaudinn and Hoffman (3) in May, 1905, announced their discovery 

 of a spiral-shaped parasite in the lesions of syphilis, which they named 

 Spirochete pallida. 



As spirocha'te, Colin, 1872, is an amended spelling of Spirochceta, Ehren- 

 berg, 1834, the name Spirochwte pallida became Spirochwta pallida. In the 

 same year Vuillemin(4) selected Spirochwta pallida as the type of a new 

 genus which he called Spironema, the organism found in syphilis thus becoming 

 Spironema pallidum, a classification accepted by Schaudinn in 1905. Further 

 investigation developed the fact that the name Spironema had been previously 

 employed to designate a genus of mollusks, and accordingly could not be used 

 in this connection. Stiles and Pfender(5) proposed the name Microspironema 

 pallidum for the organism but before their publication appeared Schaudinn (6) 

 had proposed the generic term Treponema and the specific name Treponema pal- 

 lidum, Schaudinn, which is the correct name of the parasite of syphilis. 



In February, 1905, Castellani ( 7 ) while investigating the etiology of yaws 

 at Colombo, Ceylon, discovered spirochartae in the serum of yaws lesions, one of 

 which resembled very closely Treponema pallidum in its morphology. In the 

 announcement of this discovery, which appeared in the "Journal of the Ceylon 

 Branch of the British Medical Association," June 17, 1905, he named the organ- 

 ism Spirocho?ta pertenuis, but as it undoubtedly belongs to the genus Treponema, 

 the correct name is Treponema pertenuis Castellani. Several papers by this in- 

 vestigator have since appeared (8, 9, 10, 11, 12) dealing with the etiology of 

 yaws and a few confirmatory reports of the presence in the lesions of yaws of 

 Treponema pertenuis. 



Wellman(13), in South Angola, Africa, was the first to confirm Castellani's 

 observations, finding the organism in scrapings from yaws lesions in one ease. 



*P. M. Ashbuvn, captain and assistant surgeon, United States Army, and 

 Charles F. Craig, first lieutenant and assistant surgeon, United States Army, 

 constituting the United States Army Board for the Study of Tropical Diseases 

 as they Occur in the Philippine Islands. 



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