PROCEEDINGS OF 



THE EOYAL SOCIETY. 



Section B. — Biological Sciences. 



An Antelope Trypanosome. 

 By Captain A. D. Frasek, R.A.M.C., and Dr. H. L. Duke. 



(Communicated by Sir J. Eose Bradford, Sec. R.S., being an abstract of a Report 

 to the Sleeping Sickness Commission, received May 19, 1911. Received 

 December 19, 1911,— Read January 18, 1912.) 



Ten days after blood of a bushbuck, which was shot on the shores of 

 the Victoria Nyanza, had been injected into a healthy goat, trypanosomes 

 appeared in the goat's blood. The same species of trypanosome was present 

 in blood smears made from another bushbuck and a situtunga, which were 

 shot in the same neighbourhood. 



The small characteristic trypanosome corresponds morphologically to 

 the one which was discovered in cattle in Uganda, and which was named 

 Trypanosoma uniforme by the Royal Society Sleeping Sickness Commission, 

 1908-10. This is shown by curves representing the distribution, by per- 

 centages, in respect to length of the antelope trypanosome and Trypanosoma 

 uniforme. 



Cattle, goats, sheep, and bushbuck were infected. Monkeys, pigs, dogs, 

 cats, guinea-pigs, and white rats proved to be refractory. It is concluded 

 that the trypanosome found in the antelope was Trypanosoma, uniforme. 



Experimentally it was shown that laboratory-bred Glossina palpalis 

 were capable of transmitting this species of trypanosome from infected to 

 healthy animals. Of six experiments four were successful. The flies 

 became infected in from 27 to 37 days, and the infection in the fly was 

 always limited to the proboscis. 



In order to ascertain if Glossina palpalis caught on the Lake-shore, near 

 where the infected antelope had been shot, were naturally infected, flies 



VOL. LXXXV. — B. B 



