Leishmaniasis : a review of recent literature / by C.M. Wenyon.

  • Charles Morley Wenyon
Date:
1922]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leishmaniasis : a review of recent literature / by C.M. Wenyon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a sick Arab in the Bagdad district of Mesopotamia, and that KAprrR, who continued his investigations, had diagnosed kala azar by spleen puncture in eight of twelve cases examined. Low (1919) treated a case of kala azar in England. According to him the infection was undoubtedly contracted in Bagdad, though LEDINGHAM (1919) con- sidered it possible this had occurred in India five or six months before. The unsatisfactory accounts of the discovery of leishmania in cases of supposed kala azar in the East Indies by DE Raapr (1909), ELDERS (1909) and NEEs (1909) rendered it extremely doubtful if the disease occurred at all in the countries directly east of India. Smits (1916) has, however, discovered L. donovani in six cases locally infected in Sumatra, while MENDELSON (1919) found the parasite in one case from Siam. In China the disease still appears to be limited to the district between the Yangtse and Pekin, as first described by. COCHRAN (1913-14). Wytie (1920) gives an account of 35 cases, 15 of which were diagnosed by spleen puncture, from this region. In the Mediterranean area the distribution appears to be the whole of the littoral, along which individual centres are constantly being incriminated. Thus, PATANE (1917) has discovered a case in Libya; KLIpPEL and MONIER-VINARD (1921) have recorded the first case from Morocco, and CARNoT and LIBERT (1921) one from Macedonia. MAYER and REINHARD (1918) recorded an infection which was apparently acquired in Asia Minor. The disease, though generally occurring near the coast, may occur further inland, as in Spain. A case was recorded from Lisbon by ALVAREZ in 1910. More recently LABBE, TARGHETTA and AMEUILLE (1918) described two cases from Nice in Serbian refugees. They have assumed that the disease was contracted in France. GIOSEFI! (1918) observed a case in Trieste. There is no fresh information about the disease in Egypt, nor in the endemic area in the Sudan bordering on Abyssinia, except for records of isolated cases since the issue of the report of the Sudan Kala-azar Commission (1911) and no fresh cases have been recorded from the districts about the Caspian Sea since GURKO’S paper in 1913. In 1916 BouILuiEz described the first case in a child in the Lake Chad district of West Africa, while TOURNIER (1920) recorded one from the Gaboon. As regards America, the only observation is still that of MIGONE (1913), who saw a case in an Italian who had resided in Paraguay for sixteen years. It is doubtful where he contracted the disease, for he had apparently visited Italy from time to time. Canine kala azar occurs, as does the human disease, in the Mediterra- nean littoral and in the Caspian region. As is well known, in certain cases dogs and children have been found infected in the same house. This close association is far from being always observed. NICOLLE (1921) finds that in the Tunis district the canine disease is more wide- spread than that of children. DELANOE and DENIs (1916) discovered the disease in dogs in Morocco, and it is only recently that the first human case has been seen there. PRINGAULT (1914) found that dogs were infected in Marseilles, but no human cases have been noted in this locality. NELIGAN (1913) found a generalized leishmania infection of a dog in Teheran, but kala azar in man is unknown in Persia. In West Africa the canine disease was noted by LAFONT and HECKENROTH (1915) at Dakar in Senegal. No one has yet discovered kala azar of dogs in India, nor has it beenseen in America. Even if we admit that the canine disease is due to the same organism as that producing kala azar in man, it is evident that the dog does not play any essential rdle in its spread, though there is every possibility thatit occasionally passes from dog to man or vice versa.
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