CHAPTER V. 
TRYPANOSOMIASIS THUT " ELEPHANT SURRA. 
It is desirable to mention here a disease only too well known 
to all elephant owners by the Burmese name thiit (ogc5). A 
large number of the sudden deaths occurring in elephants when not 
attributed to snake-bite fall under this heading. After most careful 
observation and enquiry I arrived at the conclusion that the term 
appears to be restricted to such cases of disease in which dropsical 
swellings appear as a symptom. In cases of surra in equines they 
are diagnosed as fever by the Burmans until some swelling either of 
the limbs, sheath, etc., is evident, then the cases are designated thut. 
It is therefore a term applied merely to any ailment in M^hich 
swellings are present, hence many diseases might be included under 
the name, but as perhaps in a fair percentage of cases, especially in 
equines, the cases are surra, I have retained the name to apply to 
this disease only. 
The actual meaning of thut is cogs^jGOODSs^c^Sab^oo^ogoS^D 
" blood that collects and tends to putrefaction." 
It is probable that some of the cases called by Natives of India 
zahirbad are cases of surra. 
Surra is a Hindustani word, meaning rotten. 
Susceptible animals. — Surra affects equines principally, but the 
disease affects camels, dogs, cats, monkeys, goats, sheep, cattle and 
elephants. 
In equines it is invariably fatal. Many cattle after considerable 
loss of flesh recover. With regard to the elephant not very much 
is known, but there is every reason for thinking that many elephants 
do recover, at any rate we are aware that the trypanosome 
disappears from the peripheral circulation, at least for considerable 
periods, whether relapses occur afterwards I cannot say in the present 
state of our knowledge. In elephants as in camels the disease 
appears to run a chronic course. 
Definition. — A pernicious anaemia characterised by remittent or 
intermittent fever, wasting, although the appetite is good, dropsical 
swellings in dependent parts of the body, great weakness and finally 
paralysis, and caused by the growth and multiplication in the blood 
of an organism. 
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