Trypanosomiasis and Sleeping Sickness. 2 1 



Calcutta similarly affected. In 1902 it was found there was in 

 Central Africa a curious disease, characterised by irregular fever? 

 swollen glands, and red spots on the chest and back — a peculiar 

 disease of human beings — and in the blood a trypanosome was 

 discovered. In the following year it was found that sleeping 

 sickness was associated with a trypanosome in the bodies of its 

 victims. A number of animals harboured those parasites in their 

 blood. There was a whole series of them ; scores were known, 

 looking like each other, but differing from each other. Argentine 

 horse fever having been described, the lecturer described the 

 symptoms of sleeping sickness. When the natives found they 

 were suffering from trypanosomic sickness they simply gave up ; 

 they sold their cattle and had as good a time as possible before 

 the inevitable end came. After a few months — or it may be 

 years — the patient became more and more languid and less 

 •inclined to work. He became morose and emaciated, the glands 

 in the neck swelled to a bigger size, he got a curious pufifiness 

 underneath the eyes, he had difficulty iri walking, there were 

 tremors of the tongue, and ultimately the muscles of the body 

 showed tremors also, showing that the poison had arrived at the 

 nervous system. Later on coma supervened, and the patient died. 

 When the nervous tremors developed the disease was absolutely 

 fatal. By means of lantern slides the parasites were described 

 by Professor Symmers. These included mammalian, avian, and 

 reptilian trypanosomes, illustrating their chief morphological 

 characters. The tsetse fly had a peculiarity. It flew in an 

 absolutely straight line with great rapidity, and when doing so 

 emitted a curious hissing sound, from which it derived its name- 

 The glossisia morsitares was a true intermediary host, and be- 

 came capable of infecting animals. The next picture was a 

 diagrammatical longitudinal section through culex pipiens, show- 

 ing the distribution of the parasites in the body of the mosquito. 

 Trypanosomes grew in the stomach of the insect, and became 

 balled in a mass at the back of the mouth, and were ultimately 

 passed through the proboscis into the animal that it bit. Pictures 



