The Animal Parasites of Man. Max Braun
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу The Animal Parasites of Man - Max Braun страница 60

Название: The Animal Parasites of Man

Автор: Max Braun

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Медицина

Серия:

isbn: 4057664648037

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ them, but by the rats licking up the fæces passed by the fleas while feeding. This is not in agreement with Minchin and Thomson’s earlier views of regurgitation, which, apparently, they have now abandoned.95 Wenyon (1912) confirms Nöller’s experiments. He took a dog flea, containing infective trypanosomes in its fæces, and allowed it to feed on a clean rat. The fæces of the flea, passed while feeding, were carefully “collected on a cover glass and taken up in culture fluid with a fine glass pipette.” The contents of the pipette were discharged into the mouth of a second clean rat. Injury to the rat’s mouth was carefully avoided. The first rat, on which the infective flea was fed, did not become infected, while the second rat, in whose mouth infective flea fæces were placed, became infected in six days.

      When infective forms of T. lewisi have been developed within the gut of a rat flea, they may enter and infect the vertebrate host by96 (a) being crushed and eaten by the rodent; (b) the rat may lick its fur on which an infected flea has just passed infective excrement; or (c) the rat may lick, and infect with flea excrement, the wound produced by the bite of the flea.

      The time taken for the full development of T. lewisi in the flea is about six days. The intracellular phase is at its height about the end of the first day; the crithidial phase, in the flea’s rectum, begins during the second day; the stumpy, infective trypanosomes are developed in the rectum about the end of the fifth day.

      Wenyon97 writes that, “the fleas, when once infected with T. lewisi, remain infected for long periods, for though many small infective trypanosomes are washed out of the gut at each feed, those that remain behind multiply to re-establish the infection of the hind gut. Further, the infection is still maintained even if the flea is nourished on a human being, so that fresh human blood does not appear to be destructive to the infective forms in the flea.”

      The best method of controlling fleas during experiments is that due to Nöller. He adopted the method of showmen who exhibit performing fleas, and secure them on very fine silver wire.

      Of fleas fed on an infected rat only about 20 per cent. become infective. About 80 per cent. are immune. If fleas are examined twenty-four hours after feeding, trypanosomes will be found in all, so that many of the parasites are destined to degenerate.

      It may be of interest to note that Gonder98 (1911) has shown that a strain of T. lewisi resistant to arsenophenylglycin loses its resistance after passage through the rat-louse, Hæmatopinus spinulosus. These experiments suggest that physiological “acquired characters” may be lost by passage through an invertebrate host.

      Trypanosoma brucei, Plimmer and Bradford, 1899.

      T. brucei is rapidly fatal to the small laboratory animals, such as rats and mice. Horses, asses and dogs practically always succumb to its attacks, while a very small number of cattle recover from “nagana.” The disease is characterized by fever, destruction of red blood corpuscles, severe emaciation and by an infiltration of coagulated lymph in the subcutaneous tissue of the neck, abdomen and extremities giving a swollen appearance thereto. The natural reservoirs in which T. brucei has been long acclimatized are unaffected by the trypanosomes, while the newer hosts, such as imported cattle in Africa, are rapidly destroyed by their action.

      Fig. 40.—Try­pan­o­soma brucei. × 2,000. (After Laveran and Mesnil.)

      The general morphology and life history in the vertebrate host is that of a typical trypanosome (fig. 40). Its length is from 12 µ to 35 µ, its breadth from 1·5 µ to 4 µ. Multiplication by longitudinal division proceeds in the peripheral blood (fig. 26), while latent, leishmaniform bodies are produced in the internal organs.

      Bruce and colleagues99 have quite recently (June, 1914) described the development of a Zululand strain of T. brucei in G. morsitans. The tsetse flies were bred out in Nyasaland. In vertebrate blood the brucei strain was polymorphic. The development was like that found for T. gambiense in G. palpalis (fig. 30), and by Bruce and colleagues for T. rhodesiense in G. morsitans in Nyasaland. Long trypanosomes were found in the proventriculus of the tsetse. Crithidial, rounded or encysted, and immature “blood forms” occurred in the salivary glands; and finally infective, stumpy, “blood forms” were differentiated in the salivary glands. The period of development of T. brucei in G. morsitans takes about three weeks, and then the fly becomes infective. Bruce believes that T. rhodesiense of Nyasaland and T. brucei of Zululand are the same, their cycles of development in G. morsitans being “marvellously alike.” (But see Laveran, p. 80.)

      T. brucei has been cultivated with difficulty by Novy and MacNeal, using blood agar. The best treatment for nagana is arsenic in some form.

      On the other hand, Bruce and colleagues (1914), examining a strain sent from Zululand in 1913, state that T. brucei is polymorphic. Bruce (1914) suggests that passage through laboratory hosts has influenced and altered the morphology of the parasite.

      Trypanosoma evansi, Steel, 1885.

      Syn.: Spirochæta evansi, Steel, 1885; Hæmatomonas evansi, Crookshank, 1886; Trichomonas evansi, Crookshank, 1886.

      Trypanosoma evansi, first found by Evans in 1880, in India, is the causal agent of the disease known as “surra.” The malady affects more particularly horses, mules, camels and cattle in India and neighbouring countries, such as Burma and Indo-China. It occurs also in Java, the Philippines, Mauritius and North Africa. Elephants may be affected. A serious outbreak among cattle in Mauritius occurred in 1902, the disease being imported into the island. The symptoms are fever, emaciation, œdema, great muscular weakness and paralysis culminating in death.

      T. evansi varies from 18 µ to 34 µ in length and 1·5 µ to 2 µ in breadth. It has a pointed posterior extremity, СКАЧАТЬ