PROCEEDINGS OF 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 



Section B. — Biological Sciences. 



The Microscopic Changes in the Nervous System in a Case of 

 Chronic Dourine or Mai de Coit, and Comparison of the 

 Same with those Found in Sleeping Sickness. 



By F. W. Mott, M.D., F.R.S. 



(Received February 21,— Read March 8, 1906.) 

 (From the Pathological Laboratory of the London County Asylums, Claybury.) 



[Plates 1 — 4.] 



Introduction. — I am indebted to Dr. Lingard, of the Imperial Bacterio- 

 logical Laboratory of India, for the nervous tissues of an Arab stallion 

 which acquired Dourine May 4 to 6, 1903. It exhibited 156 cutaneous 

 plaques together with marked symptoms of paraplegia, and died August 15, 

 1905, 27i months after infective coitus. 



This disease, Dourine, is due to a specific form of trypanosome which has 

 the power of penetrating the mucus membrane, affects equines, and is 

 transmitted like syphilis by coitus. This is of especial interest, since 

 Schaudinn has demonstrated the Spirochceta pallida of syphilis, particularly 

 as it seems possible that trypanosomes may undergo a spirillar modification. 



It is also of interest because, like some other trypanosome infections, it 

 may, and frequently does, run a very chronic course and, as in the case under 

 consideration, more than two years may elapse before a fatal termination. 

 Again the lesion found in the lumbo-sacral region of the spinal cord 

 presents some points of resemblance to a localised syphilitic meningo- 

 myelitis. 



VOL. LXXVIU. B. B 



