Report of six months' work of the expedition to Bagdad on the subject of oriental sore / by C.M. Wenyon.

  • Charles Morley Wenyon
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of six months' work of the expedition to Bagdad on the subject of oriental sore / by C.M. Wenyon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    blood, the second series was fed on the scrapings of a date boil. After ten feeds in this manner the flies were dissected. The result was that in those that had fed from the sore no trace of the date boil parasite or other flagellates could be detected, while amongst those that had fed upon human blood one had a Herpetomonas, probably H. musca domestica, in its gut. From this and other experiments it appears that the date boil parasite does not develop in the house-fly. I have not been able to determine whether the parasite is passed unharmed through the gut of the fly. Examinations of the excreta have given no definite result. Stomoxys feed readily off the sore each day but the results of such feeds have been negative. This fly occasionally harbours a Herpetomonas, evidently a parasite peculiar to itself. Large numbers of the dog-fly (Hippoboscide) have been dissected, but no flagellates were found in them. It was impossible to keep these flies in captivity, nor could they be induced to feed from the date boil. A dissection of the fleas and body lice have likewise given no result in the way of a flagellate infection. With bed bugs obtained from the prison experiments were made. The bugs were allowed to feed upon the sore, and were dissected at varying intervals after feeding as had been done in all feeding experiments. In a certain number of these, flagellates of the Her- petomonas type were found in the gut forty-eight hours after feeding. The resemblance of these flagellates to the cultural forms of the date boil parasite is very close, and since a dissection of a considerable number of bugs, which had not fed on the sore, has failed to reveal any flagellate infection, it is probable that this Herpeto- monas represents a culture of the date boil parasite in the gut of the bed bug. The distribution of the bed bug in Bagdad is so restricted that it is impossible for it to be the true carrier of the date boil. It is more probable that the large quantity of blood taken
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