XXX 
SPECIAL PROTOZOOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE BLOOD 
By Max THEILER 
PROTOZOOLOGICAL STUDIES OF SMALLER ANIMALS IN LIBERIA 
Tue zoological investigations carried out during the Expedition gave special 
opportunity for the study of parasitic infections of wild animals. Whenever 
an animal was brought into camp protozoological investigations were under- 
taken, provided decomposition had not advanced too far. Most attention 
was given by the writer to the investigation of blood protozoa — which were 
studied wherever practicable in fresh smears, as well as in Giemsa-stained dried 
smears. Smears of internal organs, for example, lungs, liver, spleen, and kid- 
ney, were also nearly always examined, in infections such as Haemoproteus or 
Haemogregarines, in the hope of finding developmental forms. Pieces of these 
same organs were preserved in fixatives for transportation home for section 
cutting. In no case, however, have smears or sections of these organs revealed 
any light as to the life-cycle of the parasites found in the blood. If a species 
of animal revealed some parasite, great efforts were made to procure other 
specimens of it, in order to find similar infections and to make as exhaustive 
a study as possible of the parasite. Thus one of the first specimens of the lizard, 
Agama colonorum, showed a few pigmented intracorpuscular parasites. Ex- 
amination of the blood of additional specimens of this same lizard showed 
that quite a number of them were infected with the same parasite which ob- 
viously belonged in the genus Plasmodium. In all, thirty A. colonorum were 
examined, of which two showed what we interpret as another and distinct 
species of Plasmodium from that which was originally observed. Some of the 
organisms studied could be identified with species described and named by 
previous workers. In most cases, however, particularly with organisms of the 
haemoproteus or haemogregarine type of which knowledge is very meager, 
we have merely given a very brief description of the parasite and a record of 
the host. Whenever it has seemed there was sufficient evidence to create a 
new species, we have done so. 
BLOOD PROTOZOA STUDIED IN LIBERIA 
Genus Plasmodium. 
Plasmodia of Monkeys. 
P. kochi Laveran, 1899, in Cercopithecus diana. 
P. cercopitheci n. sp. in Cercopithecus nictitans. 
Plasmodium of Bat. 
Plasmodium sp. in Petalia grandis. 
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