FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN TROPICAL MEDICINE 21 



covered a spirochsete m Weil's disease, which they called S. ictero- 

 hcemorragicB. In 1918 Noguchi cultivated from cases of yellow 

 fever a spirochaete which he has named Leptospira icteroides. Other 

 spirochaetae have recently been described, as will be mentioned later. 



In 1905 Schaudinn discovered the presence of a spirochsete- 

 like organism in syphilis, which he called SpirochcBta pallida. Later 

 he created for the organism a new genus — Treponema. In the 

 same year Castellani demonstrated the presence of a spirochaete or 

 treponema in yaws, and named it Spirochceta pertenuis (Treponema 

 pertenue), and in 1906 described Bronchospirochaetosis. 



Reference must here be made to the discovery of a small pro- 

 tozoan parasite in sheep suffering from a disease called ' carceag ' 

 by Babes in Roumania in 1888. The name applied to this parasite 

 —viz., haematococcus — could not be maintained, as it was already 

 used in botany, hence the generic name of Babesia was given to the 

 group by Starcovici in 1893. The term ' piroplasma,' which should 

 be used, was introduced by Patton in 1895. It is, however, mostly 

 due to the work of Smith and Kilborne on red-water in cattle that 

 Piroplasma has become well known, together with the fact that it is 

 spread by a tick. The parasite Piroplasma canis, discovered by Plana 

 and Galli-Valerio in 1895, has been thoroughly described by Celli 

 in 1900 and Nuttall in 1904, and the life-history in the tick has 

 been worked out by Christophers. At the present time, thanks 

 to the researches of Koch, Theiler, Franga, and others, several 

 species of Piroplasma especially affecting cattle are known. 



As to whether a Piroplasma is the cause of the tick or spotted fever 

 of the Rocky Mountains appears open to grave doubt, although it 

 has been described by Wilson and Chowning in 1902, and supported 

 by Westbrook and Cobb in the same year, and Anderson in 1903, 

 because other observers have failed to find any such organism. 

 There is, however, strong evidence in favour of a tick being the 

 spreader of the disease. 



Mycology. — Pathogenic mycology takes its origin in 1677 with 

 Hooke's description and illustration of fungi causing the blighted 

 or yellow specks on the leaves of the damask rose, and by his 

 illustration of the blue moulds. This pioneer work is continued by 

 Malpighi (1686), Ray (1706), Plukenet (1720), Micheli (1729), and 

 their discoveries were systematized and extended by Linnaeus (1753), 

 Persoon (1801), Fries (1821), Link (1824), and so on to the days of 

 Saccardo, Vuillemin, andlast, and by no means least, Pinoy ; but more 

 detailed information with regard to this history will be given later. 



Special attention must be drawn to the discovery by Gruby, 

 in 1844, that ringworm was due to a parasitic fungus, and to the 

 extension of that discovery by Malmsten in 1845, and to the great 

 list of investigators of this particular feature down to the classical 

 work of Sabouraud. 



This work by Gruby produced world-wide interest in parasitic 

 mycology, and for a time it made great progress, but fell back into 

 a second-rate place when bacteriology came forward, and is only 



