66 
SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
The organisms are well known to the native butchers, some of 
whom have been acquainted with them for nearly forty years. 
The butchers call them milk-nerves, “ pal-narambu ” in Tamil, 
“ kiri-nahara” in Sinhalese. The principal consumers of buffalo 
beef are said to be the Malays who have lived upon this meat for 
generations. 
II— Identification of the Parasite. 
The muscle-parasite of buffaloes is not a flatworm, although it 
resembles one superficially but belongs to a class of Protozoa, the 
Sporozoa, so called on account of the method of propagation by 
spores. Among the Sporozoa it is assigned to the order Sarcos- 
poridia. It is apparently co-specific with Sarcocystis tenella* 
which occurs in European ruminants, but on account of its special 
distribution in Ceylon as a parasite of buffaloes and not of the 
black cattle of the country, we propose, in accordance with a 
common practice among systematists to distinguish it by the 
trinomial term, Sarcocystis tenella bubali , which may be con¬ 
veniently abbreviated to S. bubali . 
The white bodies which appear prominently among the muscles 
are cysts protected by two sheaths, an outer nucleated adventitious 
sheath and an inner non-nucleated, striated tunica propria . 
The cavity of the cyst is divided up into numerous chambers by 
partitions, the chambers being filled with spores. A zone of 
proliferation consisting of small chambers may be observed 
immediately within the tunica followed by ripe chambers turgid 
with spores. The centre of the cyst is occupied by loose over¬ 
ripe chambers containing stale and degenerating spores. A 
transverse section of a fresh cyst shows an opaque peripheral 
portion comprising the ripe chambers and a pale translucent 
central portion consisting of chambers in a state of liquefaction. 
When the cysts protrude from a freshly exposed surface of meat 
it may sometimes be noted after a momentary interval that they 
have disappeared into the substance of the meat. This is due to 
passive shrinkage, not to active migration. The cysts are in¬ 
capable of independent movement although they possess con¬ 
siderable elasticity. 
III.— Growth of the Parasite. 
The parasite is found in the muscles in two principal stages of 
development, the one macroscopic (described above), the other 
microscopic. The microscopic stage can only be found by teasing 
* Cf. A. E. Shipley, Parasites from Ceylon. Spol. Zeyl., vol. 1., part III., p. 45, 
1903. 
