Kala-Azar in the Grey Monkey of the Sudan

P. irritans) is the likely transmitting agent.- Jemma, Gabbi, and Alvarez and Pereira da Silva have all succeeded in infecting dogs intraperitoneally with L. infantwm, and Jemma has also pro- duced infection by intravenous inoculation.

Laveran and Pettit, besides infecting dogs, have tried infecting rats and mice, but could not produce a general infection.

Novy, by the use of large and repeated doses of cultures of L. infantum on Novy and MacNeal’s medium, has been able to produce infection in the dog.

Patton, working with Indian kala-azar, failed to infect dogs even with repeated inoculation, but probably he killed his animals too soon to say definitely that infection does not occur.

PRESENT INVESTIGATION.

The following experiments were carried out with parasites obtained from cases of kala-azar in Sennar Province in the Anglo- Egyptian Sudan. In this province the disease affects chiefly children about 12 years of age, though adults are also occasionally infected.

So far we have found the best method of infecting monkeys is from a splenic puncture during life. An ordinary sterilized hypodermic syringe is taken, washed out with sterile citrate solution, and spleen puncture carried out in the ordinary way, the contents of the syringe being immediately injected into the peritoneal cavity of a monkey.

Twelve monkeys were used in these experiments, and the results are shown in the following table. Hight monkeys were infected with kala-azar, in three the experiment failed, and in one the result still remains doubtful.

INFECTED CASES.

Of the eight infected cases, five were infected intraperitoneally, one subcutaneously, one subcutaneously and intravenously, and one was naturally infected.

Of those infected intraperitoneally, monkey B was chloro- formed on the 62nd day, when the spleen was found to be enlarged, and Leishman bodies were present in moderate numbers; no parasite could be found in the liver, so probably the spleen becomes infected before the liver.

Monkey D died on the 65th day from a mixed infection of tuberculosis and Leishmaniosis, and it is interesting to record the degenerate nature of the parasites in this case. The parasites