LEISHMANIA INFANTUM 



375 



azar, but subsequently a case has already occurred in one of these 

 houses. Canine Icala-azar has also been found in Catania, slightly 

 in Rome, in 6'6g per cent, of dogs in Greece by Cardamatis, in 2*66 

 per cent, in Lisbon, also in Malta by Critien and Babington, and in 

 a few dogs in Colombo by Castellani in 1911. It must be noted, 

 however, that Colombo, being one of the greatest harbours of the 

 world, some of the dogs found are in reality imported dogs . Negative 

 results are reported by Donovan in Madras in 1,150 dogs, by 

 FuUeborn in Hamburg in 50 dogs, by Wenyon in Bagdad in 110 dogs, 

 by Jemma, Cristina, and Cannata in Palermo in 127 dogs, and by 

 Archibald in the Sudan. For a long time cats were examined with 

 negative results, but recently Ed. and Et. Sergent, Lombard, and 

 Quillchini, have found a four-month-old kitten to be infected in 

 Algeria. It will thus be seen that of all the endemic centres of 

 infantile kala-azar, Palermo alone affords no evidence of natural 

 canine kala-azar. 



As the result of his work Basile, supporting NicoUe, has come to 

 the conclusion that infantile and canine kala-azar are one and the 

 same disease. He reared a number of dogs in the laboratory in 

 Rome (where canine kala-azar is rare), and some of these he took to 

 Bordonaro, where they contracted canine kala-azar and died. 

 The parasites were found in the bone-marrow, spleen, and liver 

 (Fig. 87), and also in Pulex serraticeps, taken from them during 

 the last stages of the disease. The dogs in Rome were sub- 

 sequently killed, and found to be free from L. infantum. P. 

 serraticeps from a laboratory dog whose bone-marrow contained no 

 Leishmania Were isolated and kept at 22° C. in two glass vessels, 

 and eventually one lot was fed on spleen-juice from a case of canine 

 kala-azar, while the others were kept as controls. After a time the 

 intestines of the fleas were dissected out and divided into two 

 portions — one was used for smears, and the other was made into 

 , an emulsion and injected subcutaneously into a young dog one 

 month old, the bone-marrow of which had been shown to be free 

 from Leishmania, while another dog was used as a control. 



The smears from the infected fleas showed numerous specimens 

 of Leishmania in a state of multiplication, while the control fleas 

 were free. After fifteen days the dog became ill with fever and 

 loss of appetite and dejection, and showed the parasites in the peri- 

 pheral blood. In twenty-nine days the dog died, probably as a 

 result of an operation to obtain bone-marrow from the tibia. 

 Natural infection by flea-bites was effected by introducing a sick 

 dog covered with fleas into a cage containing a bitch and two thirty- 

 day-old puppies, whose bone-marrow had been found free from 

 infection. In thirty days these dogs were found to be infected, 

 and subsequently the puppies died, but the other dogs lived, 

 Controls were not infected. Basile found P. serraticeps in the bed- 

 clothes and mattresses of families who kept dogs in the house, and 

 some of these fleas were brought to Rome from dogs or mattresses 

 ■ of people living in Bordonaro, and were fed upon laboratory-reared 



