Specific Organism 



545 



Specific Organism. — The discovery of the specific organisms 

 jyas foreshadowed by Nepveu,* who recorded the existence of try- 

 janosomes in the blood. of several patients coming from Algeria, 

 by Barron, t and by Brault.J 



In 1901 Forde received under his care at the hospital in Bathurst 

 (Gambia), a European, the captain of a steamer on the River Gam- 

 bia, who had navigated the river for six years, and who had suffered 

 several attacks of fever that were looked upon as malarial. The ex- 

 amination of his blood revealed the presence not of malarial para- 

 sites, 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 try- 

 panosomes. Of these parasites he has written an excellent descrip- 



Fig. 210. — Trypanosoma gambiense (Todd). 



tion, calling them Trypanosoma gambiense. || The patient thus 

 studied by Forde and Button died in England, January i, 1903. In 

 1903 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 Mansonff discovered 2 cases of trypanosomiasis in 

 Europeans that had become infected upon the Congo. BrumptJt 

 also observed T. gambiense at Bounba at the junction of the Ruby 

 and the Congo, and Baker§§ observed 3 cases at Entebbe in Uganda. 

 Buring aU 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 Trypanosomiasis," Layeran and Mesnil, 1907. 

 II See Forde, "Jour. Trop. Med.," Sept. i, 1902; Dutton, Ibid., Dec. i, 1902; 

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



** "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. 

 tr'Acad. de Med.," March 17, 1903. 

 \\ "Brit. Med. Jour.," May 30, 1903. 



35 



