CASTELLAN ELLA BRUCEI 



411 



Cultivation. — Novy and McNeal have cultivated C. brucei in the same 

 manner as Lewisonella lewisi, and found some evidence of a toxin, but it only 

 grows exceptionally in the water of condensation from the agar medium which 

 contains half or less than half its volume of blood. Agglomeration takes 

 place under various circumstances — e.g., mixture with immune blood or a few 

 drops of dilute acetic acid, etc. 



Pathogenicity. — The disease can therefore be spread by the bites of certain 

 tsetse-flies, particularly G. morsitans and perhaps the others mentioned above. 



It can, however, be also spread by inoculation and by eating the blood of 

 animals recently dead from the disease. The incubation period is about ten 

 days, and the effects produced in animals vary considerably in the following 

 "manner:— 



1. It is an acute disease in mice, rats, dogs, monkeys, cats, etc., dogs dying 

 in two to six days, rats in three to six days. 



2. It is a subacute disease in rabbits, guinea-pigs, equines, and pigs, a 

 horse dying in fifteen to nineteen days. 



3. It is a chronic disease in cattle, goats, geese, and fowls. In cattle it 

 lasts from one week to six months. 



Battaglia has succeeded in inoculating bitches by injecting some infected 

 blood in vaginam. He has also infected rabbits by inoculating blood on the 

 penis, when a hard, granulomatous nodule, very similar to a human syphilitic 

 primary sore, developed. 



Nagana is invariably fatal to the horse, the ass, and the dog, but a small 

 percentage of bo vines recover. In these animals it is characterized by fever; 

 by an infiltration of coagulable lymph in the subcutaneous tissue of the neck, 

 of the abdomen, or of the extremities, giving a swollen appearance to those 

 parts; by a destruction more or less rapid of the red corpuscles of the blood, 

 with an extreme emaciation, often blindness ; and by the presence constantly 

 in the blood of C. brucei. 



Very few lesions are found at the autopsy, the most characteristic being: — 



1 . Enlargement of the spleen. 



2. Trypanosomes in the blood. 



3. H3rpertrophy of the lymphatic glands, but apparently not associated 

 with a development of the parasites in these organs. 



4. In horses, the liver and spleen are hjrpertrophied, and there is yellow 

 serous infiltration under the slan and mucosa and between the muscles, as 

 well as some pleural and pericardial exudations and subpericardial ecchymoses. 

 A gelatinous substance is found at times around the spinal cord. 



According to Bradford, Plimmer, Yakimoff, Lanfranchi, Rondoni, Goretti 

 and others, the spleen has a trypanolytic action, but this is denied by Laveran, 

 Thiroux, Massaglia, and others. 



The best treatment is arsenic in some form. Trypanroth, a benzine colour, 

 and serum treatment have not proved of great service. 



Castellanella equiperdum Doflein, 190 1. 

 Synonym. — T. rougeti Laveran and Mesnil. 



C. equiperdum is the cause of the disease called dourine or mal du coit in 

 horses in Europe, India, North Africa (Algeria), and North America. 



Morphology. — It is about 25 to 28 ^ in length, and has no chromatic granules 

 in the cytoplasm. It is difficult to find in naturally infected animals, being 

 best obtained from the plaques of the eruption. Salvin-Moore and Breinl 

 reported the presence of latent bodies in inoculated rats. 



Life-History. — It does not appear to be spread by a fly, but by coitus between 

 stallion and mare. Hence the disease resembles syphilis, and proves that a 

 tr5rpanosome is capable of penetrating a mucous membrane. The incubation 

 is from eleven to twenty days. 



Stage I, or the Period of (Edema. — The genital organs begin to show signs 

 of oedema, generally painless and not inflammatory, though there is some fever. 

 In about a month the oedema disappears, and weakness and emaciation begin. 



Stage 2, or the Period of Eruption, is characterized by the appearance in 

 about forty to forty-five days (or two months) after infection of an eruption, 



