Fowl of Uganda as a Reservoir of Virus of Sleeping Sickness. 329 
In order to discover whether Uganda fowls can act asa reservoir of the 
virus of Sleeping Sickness, the Commission asked themselves the following 
questions :— 
1. Can fowls be infected with the virus of Sleeping Sickness by the bites 
ot laboratory-bred and laboratory-infected Glossina palpalis ? 
2. Can fowls transmit the virus of Sleeping Sickness (7'rypanosoma 
gambiense) to clean laboratory-bred Glossina palpalis? If this is possible, can 
the flies so infected convey the virus to normal susceptible animals ? 
An answer in the affirmative to those two questions would throw suspicion 
on a possible avian host. To decide these points, the following experiments 
were devised and carried out :— 
Can Fowls be Infected with the Virus of Sleeping Sickness (Trypanosoma 
gambiense) by the Bites of Laboratory-bred and Laboratory-infected Glossina 
palpalis ? 
The method adopted to infect the fowls was carried out as follows :—Clean 
Glossina palpalis, hatched out in the laboratory, were given their first feeds on 
a monkey whose blood contained many Zrypanosoma gambiense. An interval 
of at least 24 hours was then allowed to elapse before the infected flies were 
first fed on the fowl. The fowl was then fed on, for varying periods, by these 
flies. To make certain the flies were infective, their infectivity was usually 
tested by their being allowed to bite normal susceptible animals during the 
experiment. Finally, to discover if the fowl had become infected with 
Trypanosoma gambiense by the bites of the Glossina palpalis :— 
(a) The fowl’s blood was examined frequently throughout the ecpeninone 
for Trypanosoma gambiense. 
(0) The fowl was killed and its centrifuged heart or jugular vein blood was 
carefully examined microscopically for Trypanosoma gambiense. 
(c) Two or more cubic centimetres of the centrifuged blood were injected 
into a normal susceptible animal on one or more occasions during the 
experiment. 
Two typical experiments are given in detail. 
