The development of trypanosoma gambiense in glossina palpalis

Abstract

The following experiment is so complete in itself that no apology is offered for publishing it by itself. In 1903 the Sleeping Sickness Commission of the Royal Society came to the conclusion that the carrying of infection from a sleeping sickness patient to a healthy person by the Glossina palpalis was a mechanical act, and required no previous development of the parasite within the fly. The commission also held that the power of transferring the disease was lost to the fly 48 hours after it had fed on an infected person. Koch and Stuhlmann, in German East Africa, described developing forms in Glossina , but did not succeed in infecting healthy animals by the injection of these forms.