319 
NOTE REGARDING THE NEW BUFFALO 
SPIROCHAETE. 
By ANDREW BALFOUR, M.D., 
Khartoum. 
I HAVE been much interested in Professor Nuttall’s paper in the 
April number of Parasitology (this volume, p. 113) and especially in 
his description of a parasite found by him in blood smears from a 
buffalo sent to England from British East Africa. He has named this 
organism Spirochaeta bovis caffris though he is evidently somewhat 
doubtful as to its nature. I write to say that early in 1909 I received 
from Captain Hadow one blood smear from a Jackson Hartebeeste 
which he had shot in the Bahr-El-Ghazal and on the body of which he 
found G. morsitans in the act of feeding. In this smear I found 
organisms which answered very closely to those described and figured 
by Professor Nuttall. They were somewhat smaller, having an average 
length of 16'5 /j. and a breadth of 0'7 g but presented the same 
appearance, stained in the same way and in some instances showed the 
achromatic transverse bands which he mentions. From its shape I 
mentally termed one variety the buffalo-horn type and I made drawings 
of the different forms encountered. On April 18th 1909 I sent the 
slide to Dr Wenyon at the London School of Tropical Medicine with a 
note directing his attention to these curious parasites and stating that, 
to’ me, they looked more like spirochaetes than anything else but 
that I was unable to classify them. Unfortunately, though my 
letter was safely delivered, the box containing the slide was never 
seen again. Dr Wenyon, however, wrote and told me that he had 
come across similar forms in the blood of big game which had been 
shot, and recorded his opinion that the forms in question were not blood 
parasites at all but were derived from the intestine and had been 
carried into the exit wound by the bullet or by discharges finding their 
way along the bullet track. One recognised the possibility of such an 
