Trypanosomes and trypanosomiasis / by A. Laveran and F. Mesnil. : Translated and much enlarged by David Nabarro.

  • Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran
Date:
1907
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Trypanosomes and trypanosomiasis / by A. Laveran and F. Mesnil. : Translated and much enlarged by David Nabarro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    TRYPANOSOMES AND THE TRYPANOSOMIASES CHAPTER I HISTORICAL—GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE TRYPANOSOMIASES Under the general name Trypanosomes are included organisms belonging to the class Flagellata, of the phylum Protozoa, charac- terized by the possession of a fusiform body, more or less elongated ; with, at its anterior extremity, a flagellum, which is continued along the body of the parasite as the thickened edge of an undulating membrane. In some cases there is a flagellum at both ends. All the known species of typical trypanosomes have their normal habitat in the blood of vertebrates. We shall designate under the name of the Trypanosomiases'^ those human and animal diseases produced by certain of these trypano- somes. Everyone agrees in ascribing to Valentin of Berne the discovery of the first trypanosome, observed by him in the blood of the trout {Sahno fario) in 1841. In 1842 and 1843 appeared papers by Gluge of Brussels, Mayer of Bonn, and Gruby of Paris, upon the trypanosome of frogs. It was for these parasites of the frog that Gruby introduced the name Trypanosoma (from Tpviravov, trupanon, a wimble or borer; and crwixa, soma, body). Between 1843 and 1880 our knowledge of the trypanosomes made but little progress. They were rediscovered and studied anew at varying intervals in the blood of Batrachia (Wedl, 1850 ; Chaussat, 1850; Ray Lankester, 1871; Rattig, 1875) and of various fishes (Remak, 1842 ; Gros, 1845 ; Berg, 1845 ; Chaussat, 1850). It is possible that Gros and Wedl had seen them in birds, but this is doubtful. Gros, in 1845, found trypanosomes in the blood of the field-mouse and mole; Chaussat, in 1850, found them in the black rat. But attention was only effectually drawn to the trypanosomes of mammals by the work of Lewis (1878) on the parasites of the 1 [Brumpt has suggested the name ' trypanosomosis' for the disease due to a trypanosome, which agrees with the nomenclature of other protozoan diseases— e.g., piroplasmosis, coccidiosis, etc.]