On the peculiar morphology of a trypanosome from a case of sleeping sickness and the possibility of its being a new species ( T. rhodesiense )

Abstract

As already stated in a report to the Advisory Committee for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund, dated May 9, 1910, I noticed early in February, 1910, while examining in class work a stained specimen of rat’s blood infected with what was supposed to be T. gambiense , a marked peculiarity in the morphology. This peculiarity was so striking that I doubted whether the trypanosome with which I was dealing was really T. gambiense . On making enquiries I was told that the strain was derived from a case of Sleeping Sickness then in Prof. Ross’s clinic in the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool. To make certain that there was no error in this statement I myself infected a rat from the patient’s blood. The same forms were, however, again encountered. After convincing myself that these forms were constantly present in infected rats, and that they were not shown by the rats infected with the old laboratory strain of T. gambiense maintained at the Runcorn Laboratory, I decided through pressure of work to ask Dr. Fantham (now working in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, under funds allotted by the Advisory Committee for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund) to be so good as to assist me in the description of the morphology of this trypanosome. The following paper is the outcome of our joint work.—[J. W. W. Stephens.] History of the Strain . The trypanosomes used during this investigation were obtained from W. A., male, aged 26, a native of Northumberland, who was infected in North-East Rhodesia in September, 1909. It is necessary to set forth the itinerary of W. A. while in Africa, as he was never actually in an area infested with Glossina palpalis , so far as records are available, and indeed was never nearer (Kasama) than some 86 miles from such an area.