INTRODUCTION. 
Prot. 3 
INTRODUCTION. 
The Protozoa Record for 1902 contains quite 450 papers, including a 
certain number belonging to previous years, some of which, however, 
have only lately arrived at the libraries. Although this is an increase of 
nearly 60 per cent., the Recorder is glad to say that the number of asterisks 
shews, if anything, a slight decrease. The extreme importance of the 
group from a parasitological and pathological point of view is seen from 
the general constitution of the record, a large proportion of the papers 
dealing with malaria, trypanosomosis , or piroplasmosis. Unfortunately the 
tendency is for such memoirs to appear in medical journals, many of them 
difficult of access (most of the asterisks are prefixed to papers of this 
description), and although some deal chiefly with the medical aspects of 
the disease and are of no great interest to zoologists, this does not apply 
to all, and the Recorder cannot too much deprecate the practice of an 
author like Schaudinn, of bringing out two of the ablest Protozoan mono¬ 
graphs of recent years in a publication that not a single zoological library 
is accustomed to take in. When he himself edits a journal like the new 
“Archiv fur Protisten-Kunde,” the first volume of which can best be 
described as a “mine of Protozoan wealth,” it is somewhat incongruous 
to send his own work to the “ Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserliclien Gesund- 
heitsamt,” which, however estimable a publication, is not noted for its 
zoological character. 
Among a number of important works in the section for Biology, selec¬ 
tion for particular mention is rather difficult, but a place in the foremost 
rank may well be assigned to the memoirs of Schaudinn (335 & 336), above 
referred to, on the life-histories of Cyclospora caryolytica, and Plasmodium 
vivax (the tertian parasite) respectively. Another (334) on Coccidium 
schubergi , of equal value, though of earlier date, is included, as it does 
not seem to have been recorded before. Siedlecki’s accounts of Adelea 
ovata (359a) and Caryotropha mesnili (358) provide very interesting- 
material for comparison with the above. While Leger (215) and L£ger 
& Duboscq (217) describe widely different varieties of anisogamous conju¬ 
gation in certain Gregarines, Berndt (19) shews that the process may also 
be isogamous in the Cephalina , isogamy having been hitherto known only 
in the Acephalina. 
Hintze’s paper (159) on the life-history of LanJcesterella, from the 
frog, is largely discredited by the quite recent work of Siegel & Schaudinn 
(1903) which brings the Heemosporidia of cold-blooded vertebrates more 
into line with the Gymnosporea (in the possession of a digenetic cycle, 
with a “definitive” Invertebrate host in which the sexual process takes 
place). 
The occurrence of trypanosomosis in the human subject, and the quite 
recent discovery by Castellani of Trypanosomes' in persons suffering from 
sleeping-sickness, has given to the group an importance only second to 
that possessed by the malarial parasites, and researchers in this direction 
will find much of interest in last year’s papers bearing on the subject. 
The indefatigable Laveran, either alone (188 & 190), or with his associate 
Mesnil (196 & 202) investigates the morphology of various species and in 
(197) they give a full account—as also do Bradford & Plimmer (40)— 
of the Trypanosoma brucei and “ Nagana.” Dutton (94a) describes and 
figures the new human parasite, T. gambiense , and other useful contribu¬ 
tions to this branch are those by Jurgens (174), Senn (352), and Voges 
(403). Piroplasmosis and its causative-agent (the Haemosporidian, Piro- 
plasma) form the theme of papers by Lignieres (227) and Nocard & 
Motas (276), the former considerably adding to our knowledge of the 
development undergone by the parasite, while in the tick. 
