Specific Organism 



507 



Specific Organism. — The discovery of the specific organisms 

 was foreshadowed byNepveu,* who recorded the existence of try- 

 panosomes in the blood of several patients coming from Algeria, 

 by Barron,t and by Brault.f In 1901 Forde received under his 

 care at the hospital in Bathurst (Gambia), a European, the captain 

 of a steamer on the River Gambia, who had navigated the river for 

 six years, and who had suffered several attacks of fever that were 

 looked upon as malarial. The examination of his blood revealed 

 the presence not of malarial parasites, but of small worm-like bodies, 

 concerning the nature of which Forde was undecided. § Later, 

 Button, in conjunction with Forde, examined this patient, whose 

 condition had become more serious, and recognized that the worm- 

 like bodies seen by Forde were trypanosomes. Of these parasites 

 he has written an excellent description, calhng them Trypanosoma 



Fig. 206. — Trypanosoma gambiense (Todd). 



gambiense.il The patient thus studied by Forde and Button died 

 in England January i , 1 903 . In 1 903 Button and Todd* * examined 

 1000 persons in Gambia and found similar trypanosomes in the 

 bloods of 6 natives and i quadroon. In the same year Mansonft 

 discovered 2 cases of trypanosomiasis in Europeans that had be- 

 come infected upon the Congo. Brumpt JJ also observed T. gam- 

 biense at Bounba at the junction of the Ruby and the Congo, and 

 Baker§§ observed 3 cases at Entebbe in Uganda. 

 During all this time no connection was suspected between these 



* " Memoirs,. Soc. de Biol, de Paris," 1891, p. 49. 

 t "Transactions of the Liverpool Medical Institute," Dec. 6, 1894. 

 t "Janus," July to August, 1898, p. 41. 



§ "Trypanosomes and Trjrpanosomiasis," Laveran and Mesnil, 1907. 

 II See Forde, "Jovir. Trop. Med.," Sept. i, 1902; Button, Ibid., Dec. i, 1902; 

 Button, "Thompson- Yates Laboratory Reports," 1902, v, 4, part 11, p. 455- 



_**"First Report of the Trypanosomiasis Expedition to Senegambia," 1902, 

 Liverpool, 1903. 



tt"Jour. Trop. Med.," Nov. i, 1902, and March 16, 1903; "Brit. Med. 

 Jour.," May 30, 1903. 

 tt "Acad, de Med.," March 17, 1903. 

 §§"Brit. Med. Jour.," May 30, 1903. 



