374 
DR. AREIGO VISENTINI. 
point, to that of experimental syphilis. In tlie circumscribed 
corneal lesions provoked by Volpino there were found typical 
Leishmanias, contained in the large mononuclears. 
Basile and I have repeatedly inoculated large quantities of 
cultures in various ways, including the corneal method, with- 
out succeeding in our object. On the other hand, a single 
intra-peritoneal injection of a culture of Leishmania at the 
eighth transplantation, about fifteen day'^s old and very rich 
in flagellate forms, was found by Franchind (1911) to be 
suflBcient to produce in a guinea-pig an infection with Leish- 
mania wliich ran a course that might be termed acute. 
After six days the animal began to lose flesh and to show 
febrile symptoms; after twenty-six days the depression pre- 
viously evident had become very marked. The guinea-pig 
was sacrificed before spontaneous death intervened. Its 
weight had diminished by almost half of the original amount. 
At the autopsy the liver and spleen were found to be 
enlarged ; the mari'ow of the long bones was very abundant 
and of a reddish-brown colour ; the supra-renal capsules were 
also enlarged. In the spleen, liver, bone-marrow, peripheral 
blood, supra-renal capsules and kidney Franchini found forms 
of Leishmania more or less numerous, but always extra- 
cellular, a state of things which, in the author’s opinion, is in 
relation with the septicEemic type of the infection. 
In the guinea-pig, rat and mouse, Laveran and Pettit 
(1909) have obtained slight infections of Leishmania local- 
ised constantly in the peritoneum as the result of intra- 
peritoneal, intra-hepatic, and even subcutaneous injections of 
an emulsion of organs of a dog infected with leishmaniosis. 
But by means of cultures infection was not obtained in the 
mouse, even after injections repeated many times and with 
increased doses. This was established by Delanoe, who has 
thrown light on the mechanism of the natural immunity 
possessed by the mouse against the cultures, showing that in 
* It is well to point out that Franchini, when he uses the name L. 
donovani, means (at least so I believe) the Leishmania which is the 
specific agent of kala-azar in Italy. 
