Class III. Sporozoa, Leuckart, 1879

The third group of the Protozoa consists entirely of parasitic organisms forming the class known as the Sporozoa or spore-producing animals. The members of this class are characterized by possessing very great powers of multiplication, coupled with a capacity for producing forms that serve for the transference of the organisms to other hosts. These reproductive bodies, whether for increase of numbers within one host or for transmission to another host, are called spores. But, strictly, the term spore should be used only in the latter connection, when a protective or resistant coat known as a sporocyst envelops the body of the spore.

The Sporozoa are widely distributed, occurring in various tissues and organs of Annelids, Molluscs, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. Their food, which is fluid, is absorbed osmotically. The life-cycle of a Sporozoön may be completed within one host or may be distributed between two different hosts.

The Sporozoa were divided by Schaudinn into two groups or sub-classes, called (1) the Telosporidia, and (2) the Neosporidia.

The Telosporidia are Sporozoa in which the reproductive phase of the parasites is distinct from the growing or trophic phase, and follows after it. The Neosporidia include Sporozoa in which growth and spore-formation go on simultaneously. This classification is not final, for certain exceptions and difficulties are already known with regard to it. It is possible that the class Sporozoa is not a natural entity, but should be replaced by two classes of equal rank, corresponding in most respects with the Telosporidia and Neosporidia.

The Telosporidia comprise the Gregarinida, the Coccidiidea, and the Hæmosporidia. Doflein combines the two latter orders into one known as the Coccidiomorpha.

The Neosporidia comprise the Myxosporidia, the Microsporidia, the Actinomyxidia, the Sarcosporidia, and the Haplosporidia. Doflein combines the first three orders into one, the Cnidosporidia.

Sub-Class. TELOSPORIDIA, Schaudinn.

Sporozoa in which the reproductive phases follow completion of growth.

Order. Gregarinida, Aimé Schneider emend. Doflein.

Knowledge of the Gregarinida probably goes back as far as the year 1684, when Redi observed gregarines in the crab, Cancer pagurus. Von Cavolini (1787) found them in Cancer depressus. The name Gregarina was created by L. Dufour (1828), who observed masses of these organisms in the gut of insects of different orders. Hammerschmidt (1838) and von Siebold found rich infestations in insects, while Dujardin (1835) and Henle described various genera from segmented worms. Henle (1835) also observed cysts containing “navicellæ” in the sperm-sacs of segmented worms, and attention was drawn to his researches by the discovery by von Siebold (1839) of “pseudonavicellæ” in the gut of Sciara nitidicollis. Up to this time many workers considered the gregarines to be worms, but Kölliker (1845) investigated many of them and maintained their unicellular nature, while Stein’s work (1848) showed the interrelation of the pseudonavicellæ and the gregarines. The discovery of amœboid germs in the pseudonavicellæ by Lieberkühn (1855) and the demonstration of myonemes further aided in the elucidation of their true systematic position. The entire process of conjugation, of which Dufour had seen one phase, was followed by Giard under the microscope.

From 1873 onwards Aimé Schneider made important additions to the knowledge of the morphology, life-history, and systematic position of numerous gregarines. Bütschli (1881) and L. Léger (1892) also contributed much work on the subject. The discoveries of Schaudinn with regard to the life-cycle of Coccidia gave a fresh stimulus to the study of the Gregarines, whereby the life-cycles of numerous forms and the phases thereof have been elucidated.

Asexual multiplication is not common among the Gregarines, but is known to occur in the sub-order Schizogregarinea, formerly known as the Amœbosporidia.

Although the Gregarinida are not known to be parasitic in man or other vertebrates, they are of great interest, inasmuch as they are among the earliest known Sporozoa, and therefore will be briefly described here.

The Gregarines are usually elongate, somewhat flattened organisms (figs. 59, 60), whose bodies are enclosed in an elastic and often thick cuticle. The enclosed living substance shows a separation into ectoplasm and endoplasm, as is common among Protozoa. The cuticle is sometimes regarded as the outer portion or epicyte of the ectoplasm. A single, vesicular, spherical, or elliptical, large nucleus, with its chromatin concentrated to form a spherical karyosome, is present. The body of some gregarines may be divided by ingrowing ectoplasmic partitions or septa, and are then said to be “septate” or “polycystid” (fig. 61). Other gregarines remain simple and non-septate, and are termed “monocystid” (fig. 59). The monocystid gregarines occur especially in the body cavity of Chætopoda and Insecta, more rarely in Echinodermata, in the parenchyma of Platyhelminthes, also in the gut of Tunicata and Insecta (fig. 60) and in the seminal vesicles of Annelida. In the polycystid gregarines a single septum only is present as a rule, and thus the body presents two portions: (1) an anterior portion termed the protomerite; (2) a posterior, larger portion, known as the deutomerite, which generally contains the nucleus. The protomerite is often modified anteriorly to form an organ of attachment, termed the epimerite (fig. 61), which is developed from the pointed rostrum of the sporozoite or primary infecting young gregarine. The structure of the epimerite may be complicated, being provided with hooks, spines, knobs, and other appendages. An extension of the polycystid condition is seen in Tæniocystis mira Léger (from the dipteran larva, Ceratopogon solstitialis), whose body shows a number of partitions, giving the organism a superficial resemblance to a tapeworm.

The ectoplasm of a gregarine exhibits three layers: (1) An epicyte (cuticle) externally of which the epimerite is composed; (2) a sarcocyte which forms the septa if present; (3) the deeper myocyte layer containing contractile elements in the form of fibrils or threads termed myonemes (fig. 62).

The endoplasm is fluid and granular, containing many enclosures, which are of the nature of reserve food materials. They consist of fat droplets or of paraglycogen, and give the organisms an opaque appearance. Lithocystis contains crystals of calcium oxalate in its endoplasm.

Many gregarines are capable of active movements, though they do not possess obvious locomotor organs. The movement is of a smooth, gliding character and two suggestions have been put forward to explain it. According to Schewiakoff, a gelatinous substance is secreted between the layers of the ectoplasm. This is extruded posteriorly and thus the animal is pushed forward. On the other hand, Crawley considers that the movements are produced by contractions of the myonemes. These two explanations are probably correct as far as each goes, and are to be regarded as supplementary to one another.

Occasionally, temporary associations of gregarines are formed by a number of individuals adhering to one another end to end. Such temporary associations are examples of syzygy. Such syzygies must not be confused with true associations which form an essential part of the life-cycle.

The life-cycle of a relatively simple gregarine, such as Monocystis agilis (fig. ), parasitic in earthworms, may now be considered. The gregarines, being members of the Sporozoa, produce spores at one phase of the life-cycle. Each gregarine spore (fig. 63) develops within itself a number of minute, sickle-shaped or vermicular bodies, known as sporozoites or primary infecting germs. Eight sporozoites are often formed within each spore. When absorbed by a new host, the spore softens and the sporozoites issue from it. They are capable of active movement and may or may not enter a cell, such as one of those of the digestive tract, or, as in Monocystis, a cell lining the vesicula seminalis which becomes a sperm-cell aggregate (sperm morula). When the sporozoite has reached the place of its choice in the host it ceases active movements and proceeds to feed passively on the fluid substances around it, whether they be those of tissues or body fluids. This passive, growing and feeding form is known as the trophozoite. After a trophic existence of longer or shorter duration, the trophozoite ceases to feed and prepares for reproduction. Two trophozoites associate together, each of them first becoming somewhat rounded. The two trophozoites, now known as sporonts or gametocytes, become invested in a single common envelope or cyst (fig. 64, a). The nucleus of each gametocyte then divides by a series of binary fissions (fig. 64, b), and the daughter nuclei thus produced arrange themselves at the periphery of the parent cells (fig. 64, c). Cytoplasm collects around each of these nuclei, and thus a number of gametes are formed within each gametocyte. The gametes for a time exhibit active movements, and ultimately ripe gametes of different parentage fuse in pairs, that is, conjugation occurs (fig. 64, d). In this way zygotes are produced, the nucleus of each zygote being formed by the fusion of two gamete nuclei.

The zygote grows slightly and becomes oval or elongate, and at this period is often called the sporoblast. It then secretes an external membrane, the sporocyst. Nuclear division occurs inside the sporocyst by a series of three binary fissions (fig. 64, e), so that each sporocyst, now usually referred to as a spore, contains eight nuclei. The cytoplasm collects around each nucleus and eight vermicular sporozoites are produced within each spore (fig. 64, f), thus completing the life-cycle.

It will be noticed that in the above life-cycle no asexual multiplication occurs. These organisms, such as Monocystis, are known as the Eugregarines, and include the majority of the gregarines. The remainder, which have introduced schizogony into their life-cycle, are known as the Schizogregarines.

There are variations in the morphology and life-cycle of gregarines besides those that have been mentioned. It is not within the scope of this book to discuss them in detail, but the following may be noted:—

Morphological differentiation of gametes may occur as in Stylorhynchus oblongatus (fig. 65), which differentiation is probably of a sexual nature.

The sporocyst really consists of two layers, an epispore and an endospore. Externally the spores of different gregarines show great variety in shape and markings, and spines, or long processes may be present (fig. 66).

The resistant spores serve for the transmission of the gregarines from host to host. The mode of infection is contaminative, the spores expelled with the dejecta of one host being absorbed with the food of a new host.

The Gregarinida may be classified as follows:—

Sub-order I.—Eugregarinea, without schizogony.

Tribe 1.—Acephalina.—Without an epimerite and non-septate; often “cœlomic” (body-cavity) parasites. E.g.: Monocystis, with several species parasitic in the seminal vesicles of earthworms. Many other genera parasitic in Echinodermata, Tunicata, Arthropoda, etc.

Tribe 2.—Cephalina.—With an epimerite, either temporarily or permanently, in the trophic phase. Usually septate (except Doliocystidæ). Many families, genera and species. Common in the digestive tracts of insects. E.g.: Gregarina, with several species, Gregarina ovata in the earwig, Gregarina blattarum in the cockroach, Stylorhynchus in beetles, Pterocephalus in centipedes, etc.

Sub-order II.—Schizogregarinea, with schizogony.

Tribe 1.—Endoschiza.—With schizogony occurring in the intracellular phase, e.g., Selenidium (from Annelida and Gephyrea), Merogregarina (from an Ascidian).

Tribe 2.—Ectoschiza.—In which the schizont is free, and schizogony is extracellular, e.g., Ophryocystis (from Blaps, a beetle), and Schizocystis (from Ceratopogon larva).

Order. Coccidiidea.

Hake (1839) first saw the organisms now termed Coccidia during his investigations on the so-called coccidial nodules of rabbits. The opinions as to the nature of these peculiar formations were very diverse. The discoverer considered them to be a sort of pus corpuscle; Nasse (1843) took them for epithelial cells of the biliary passages, others for helminthes, especially the ova of trematodes (Dujardin, Küchenmeister, Gubler, etc). Remak (1845) was the first to draw attention to their relation to the Psorospermia (Myxosporidia), and this investigator found them also in the small intestine and vermiform appendix of rabbits. Lieberkühn (1854), who examined not only the coccidia of rabbits, but found similar forms in the kidneys of frogs, likewise called them definitely psorosperms. To differentiate Müller’s psorosperms, which are found in fishes, from those of rabbits, etc., the latter were called egg-shaped psorosperms (Eimer), until R. Leuckart (1879) named them Coccidia and placed them in a group of the Sporozoa analogous to that of the Gregarinida, Myxosporidia, etc. Numerous works confirmed the occurrence of coccidia, not only in all classes of vertebrate animals, but also in invertebrates (Mollusca, Myriapoda, Annelida, etc.). A large number of genera and species have in the course of time been described which inhabit the epithelium of the intestine and its appendages for choice, but are also found in other organs (kidneys, spleen, ovaries, vas deferens, testicles). Some also live in the connective tissue of various organs, more particularly of the intestine.

The knowledge of the development of the coccidia was of particular importance in determining their classification. By means of encysted coccidia from the liver of rabbits, Kauffmann (1847) first confirmed the fact that the cyst, which was partly or entirely filled with granular contents, divided into three or four pale bodies (fig. ) after a long sojourn in water. Lieberkühn observed the same process in the host in the case of the coccidia of the kidney of the frog. Stieda (1865) studied more minutely the changes that occur within the encysted coccidia of the liver of rabbits after the death of the host. He discovered that the bodies now known as “spores” were oval formations pointed at one pole, and surrounded by a delicate membrane, which exhibited a certain thickness at the pointed extremity and enclosed a slightly bent rodlet, expanding at either end into a strongly light-refracting globule; a finely granular globule was present in the middle of the spore. Waldenburg (1862) saw the same phenomenon in coccidia from the epithelium of the villi and Lieberkühn’s glands of the intestine of the rabbit; but the process in this case took place in a much shorter time.

According to the discovery of Kloss (1855), the spores of the coccidia of the urinary organ of the garden snail were formed in far greater numbers: the round spores also harboured several (five to six) rodlets, which after the bursting of the spore-envelope became free. Eimer’s researches (1870) afforded information regarding a Coccidium from the intestine of the mouse, which was transformed in toto into a “spore,” containing small sickle-shaped bodies. The fact was, moreover, established that the little bodies left the delicate envelope when in the intestine, made movements of flexion and extension, and were finally transformed into amœboid organisms, which apparently penetrated the epithelial cells; at all events, similar bodies of various sizes were seen in these cells. Taking the immense number of these parasites into account and the lack of any other cause, Eimer attributed the sudden death of his mice to the Gregarina falciformis, as the parasite was then called, just in the same way as a few years previously Reincke ascribed the acute and fatal intestinal catarrh of rabbits to the invasion of intestinal coccidia.

All that had become known about coccidia up to 1879 was then compiled by Leuckart, and completed by his own observations on the coccidia of the liver of the rabbit. Experimental infections had already been conducted by Waldenburg (1862) with intestinal coccidia of rabbits, and by Rivolta (1869–73) with the coccidia of fowls, which experiments confirmed the importance of the spores, or bodies enclosed in them, in the transmission of the parasites to other animals. Accordingly, it was assumed that after the entry of the spores into the intestine the sporozoites were set free, actively penetrated into the intestinal cells, where they grew into coccidia, and finally became encysted. The further development, i.e., the formation of spores, took place outside the host’s body in these cases; in other cases (Kloss, Eimer) it took place within the host. Although much regarding the cycle of development was still hypothetical, the ideas coincided with the observations, and were therefore universally regarded as established. Further research confirmed this view in numerous new forms.

L. Pfeiffer’s statements (1891) on the part that certain coccidia or their sporozoites played, or seemed to play, as causes of disease gave a renewed impetus to the investigation of the coccidia. The ingestion of even very numerous spores did not appear to account for the mass infection so frequently observed, even after Balbiani had confirmed the fact that there were two, and not one, sporozoites contained in every spore of the coccidia of rabbits (fig. ). The hypothesis was therefore advanced that the sporozoites or young coccidia were able to divide once again by sporulating. The question was finally solved quite differently. R. Pfeiffer (1892) first confirmed the fact that in addition to the well-known method of sporulation in the coccidia of the rabbit that causes the infection of fresh hosts (“exogenous sporulation”), an enormous increase may follow in the already infected host in a manner that Eimer first observed in the coccidia of the intestine of the mouse (“endogenous sporulation”). It had hitherto been believed that some of the species of coccidia increased like the rabbit parasite, then known as Coccidium oviforme, and others like Eimeria falciformis, and this difference had been made the foundation of a classification. R. Pfeiffer was successful in observing the occurrence of both kinds of development in the same species, and expressed the opinion that endogenous sporulation (fig. ), which takes place within the host, was the cause of the mass-infection that is mostly accompanied by serious consequences (fig. ). L. Pfeiffer sought, especially, to demonstrate the correctness of this view as regards other species of coccidia and for this purpose he utilized the experiences already published. Coccidia were known to exist in a number of different hosts, and to propagate in some according to the Coccidium type, in others according to the Eimeria type. It therefore was reasoned that in this case it was not a question of two species belonging to different genera living side by side, with a different mode of development, but of one species, in the life of which both forms of development occurred alternately.

This interpretation of facts was combated especially by A. Schneider (1892) and by Labbé, but has, nevertheless, proved true, apart from the circumstance that Schuberg succeeded in discovering the hitherto unknown Coccidium form in the intestine of the mouse; and that, moreover, Léger confirmed the fact that there are no Arthropoda in which Eimeria are not found together with coccidia. The question was finally settled by experiments made by Léger with the coccidia of Scolopendra cingulata, by Schaudinn and Siedlecki with those of Lithobius forficatus, and by Simond with the coccidia of the rabbit. On Simond’s suggestion the sickle-shaped germs corresponding to the sporozoites, which are formed by endogenous sporulation, are generally termed merozoites; and in accordance with Schaudinn’s suggestion, those individuals which form merozoites are termed schizonts, and those which produce spores are called sporonts. In contradistinction to sporogony (exogenous sporulation), the term schizogony (endogenous sporulation) is used.

The more minute examination of these processes at last led to the discovery of sexual dimorphism, of copulation and of alternation of generations in the coccidia. Schuberg was the first to consider the possibility of copulation in coccidia; in addition to the formations which now are termed merozoites, he observed very diminutive bodies (“microsporozoites”) in the coccidia of the intestine of the mouse, which were able eventually to copulate. Labbé confirmed this observation in some of the species, and Simond expressed the opinion that bodies termed “chromatozoites” occurred in all coccidia. Copulation itself was then observed by Schaudinn and Siedlecki (1897). The copulating bodies were termed gametes. As, however, they differed considerably one from the other, the males were called microgametes (i.e., the microsporozoites of Labbé and the chromatozoites of Simond) and the females macrogametes. After copulation was completed sporogony took place, and in the cycle of development of one species this regularly alternated with schizogony (asexual multiplication). Schaudinn in 1900 described in detail the life-cycle of Eimeria (Coccidium) schubergi.

The recognition of this unsuspected complicated process was bound to effect reforms in the classification of the coccidia; and all the forms that had been regarded as developmental stages (Eimeria, etc.) had to be reconsidered.

Occurrence.—The Coccidiidea in their mature condition usually live within the epithelial cells of various organs, and by choice inhabit those of the intestine and of its associated organs. They also occur frequently in the excretory organs of mammals, birds, amphibia, molluscs, arthropods, and may also be found in the testes and vas deferens, but the statement that they live in hen’s eggs, as well as in the oviducts of fowls, has not been confirmed. Some species inhabit the nuclei of cells, others live in the connective tissue, but their presence in the latter situation is probably only secondary, that is, they have only reached it from the epithelium of the affected organs.

The size of the Coccidiidea, corresponding as a rule to the capacity of their habitat, is usually small, but there are said to be species that attain a diameter of 1 mm. Their form is globular, oval, or elliptical. External appendages are lacking, at least during the trophic or vegetative period of their life, which is spent in epithelial cells, within which they increase in size. Frequently one only is present in each cell, but more can occur. The body substance is composed of a more or less finely granular or distinctly alveolar protoplasm which exhibits no differentiation into ecto- and endoplasm. All species possess a nucleus that enlarges with their growth; sometimes it only shows through the cytoplasm as a lighter spot, or may even be quite concealed. It is vesicular, and besides containing very delicate threads of chromatin in the clear nucleoplasm, it contains generally only one large karyosome.

The infected epithelial cells degenerate sooner or later as the parasite feeds on them (fig. , II-IV). After their form has been changed by the action of the growing parasite, they finally perish. The cell membrane then alone surrounds the coccidia, which, at least in the species sufficiently known, begin to propagate by an asexual process (schizogony), the parasites themselves becoming schizonts, as the initial stage is usually called. They differ from later stages (sporonts or gametocytes), which resemble them in form, by the absence of granulations in the cytoplasm, as well as by the vesicular nucleus. The form is not always the same, for in some cases, at least, many schizonts assume a globular form.

Schizogony (fig. 67, V-VII) commences with a division of the nucleus, which takes place in different ways in the various species. This finally leads to the formation of numerous daughter nuclei which become smaller and smaller, and which collect beneath the surface of the schizonts. In some species the daughter nuclei collect only in one half of the schizont. A part of the protoplasm of the periphery now divides around each daughter nucleus, the remaining part (residual body) being left in the centre or on one side. The segments of the divided cytoplasm, each containing a nucleus, assume a fusiform shape and become merozoites, which very soon become free (fig. 67, VIII) and leave the residual body. They are distinguishable from the very similar sporozoites (fig. 67, I), as the merozoites possess a karyosome.

The merozoites move in a manner similar to that of the sporozoites. The movements consist either of slow incurvations with subsequent straightenings, or annular contractions along the entire extent of the body. In addition, there are gliding movements similar to those of many gregarines, and brought about in a like manner by the secretion at the posterior extremity of a gelatinous substance that hardens rapidly.

The merozoites do not gain the open in the usual way, but are destined to infect still further the same host by actively penetrating into other epithelial cells of the affected organ. Here they continue their growth and may again and again undergo schizogony. In the Infusoria the repeated segmentations finally cease and are renewed only after a conjugation. This is likewise the case with the Coccidia, with the difference that in the latter the two conjugating individuals (gametes) are differently constituted one from the other, whereas in the Infusoria they are almost always similar.

When the schizogony ceases, the merozoites, that had penetrated the epithelial cells and become trophozoites there, consist of two kinds of differently constituted individuals. One kind possesses a clear cytoplasm (fig. 67, XII), the other an opaque, richly granular cytoplasm (fig. 67, XI), while both possess a vesicular nucleus with a karyosome. In order to continue their development, the more granular individuals must be fertilized, and are therefore termed either female gametes or, on account of their size, macrogametes. The male individuals (microgametes) necessary to conjugation, are formed in greater numbers from the less dense microgametocytes or male mother-cells (fig. 67, XIId). They are slender bodies consisting chiefly of nuclear substance, and in most species bear two flagella of unequal length directed backwards, the place of insertion of which varies according to the species (fig. 67, XIIe).

While the development of the microgametes is rapidly advancing a change occurs in the nucleus of the female parent forms or macrogametocytes. Parts of the karyosome are extruded (fig. 67, XIc), and the nucleus loses at the same time its vesicular form. One macrogamete results, after nuclear maturation, from one macrogametocyte. By this time the macrogametes are capable of conjugation, and the process takes place within the host, generally, however, outside the affected and degenerated host cells. The microgametes that have now become free from the very large residual body, crowd around the mature macrogametes, which often send out a small prominence (“cone of reception” or fertilization protuberance) for their reception (fig. 67, XIII). As soon as a microgamete comes in contact with this and penetrates into the cytoplasm of the macrogamete, the latter surrounds itself with a membrane which prevents the intrusion of other microgametes. The nucleus of the microgamete that has gained entry unites with the nucleus of the macrogamete, which latter is afterwards capable of forming the well-known spores. The parasite is now called an encysted zygote or oöcyst. The oöcysts of some other members of the Coccidiidea, e.g., Eimeria avium, can form their walls prior to fertilization. In such cases, a weak spot is left at one place in the cyst wall, forming a micropyle, that permits of the entry of the male, immediately after which the micropyle is closed.

The reduced nucleus of the macrogamete elongates on the entry of the microgamete, and becomes a fertilization spindle to which the male pronucleus (from the microgamete) becomes attached (fig. 67, XIV and XV). Thereupon the spindle divides into two daughter nuclei (fig. 67, XVI) which assume a round shape. The protoplasm at this stage may at once divide, or another segmentation of the daughter nuclei may first occur. In the former case the two halves divide again, so that finally four nucleated segments, the sporoblasts, are formed, whereas in the latter case the four sporoblasts appear simultaneously (fig. 67, XVII). In both cases a residual body of varying size is separated from the protoplasm of the oöcyst. As a rule the oöcysts have already been discharged from the body of the host, and in the manner described above, form the sporoblasts after a longer or shorter period of incubation.

The sporoblasts are originally naked, but each soon secretes a homogeneous membrane, the sporocyst, in which it becomes enveloped (fig. , XVIII). After the segmentation of the nucleus the contents divide into two sickle-shaped sporozoites, in addition to which there is generally also a residual body (fig. 67, XIX).

This terminates the development. The spores are intended for the infection of other hosts. If they reach the intestine of suitable hosts, either free or enclosed in the oöcyst wall, the action of the intestinal juices causes them to open and permits the escape of the sporozoites (fig. 67, XX). The latter move exactly like the merozoites and soon make their way into epithelial cells (fig. 67, I), where they become schizonts, and thus repeat the life cycle.

Although our knowledge of the development of the coccidia is but of recent date, yet it already extends to a large number of species, which exhibit various deviations from the cycle of development described above. For instance, in addition to differences in the gametocytes, the schizonts of Adelea and Cyclospora also show differentiation and give rise to macromerozoites and micromerozoites, whilst in Adelea and Klossia a precocious association of the gametocytes precedes the true copulation of the ripe gametes.

The classification of the Coccidiidea is based chiefly on the number of sporozoites found in each spore, and the number of sporocysts (spores) found in one oöcyst. Léger recognises two great legions, the Eimeridea and the Adeleidea, the former comprising the greater number of genera, including the genus of most economic importance, Eimeria. It must be noted that, though a member of this genus may be frequently referred to as Coccidium, strictly it should be termed Eimeria, that name having priority. The name of the disease resulting from the action of such parasites is, however, established and remains as coccidiosis.

Certain of the more important of the Coccidiidea may now be considered.

Genus. Eimeria, Aimé Schneider, 1875.

Syn.: Psorospermium, Rivolta, 1878; Cytospermium, Rivolta, 1878; Coccidium, R. Leuckart, 1879; Pfeifferia, Labbé, 1894; Pfeifferella, Labbé, 1899.

The Eimeria belong to Léger’s old family, the Tetrasporocystidæ, which comprises forms producing oöcysts with four sporocysts, each containing two sporozoites. The cysts are spherical or oval, as are also usually the schizonts. The members of the genus are confined chiefly to vertebrate hosts, the more important economically occurring in mammals and birds. From the mammalian hosts very rarely the parasites may reach man. Eimeria (Coccidium) avium of wild birds and poultry, and Eimeria stiedæ parasitic in rabbits, may be considered. There is a general similarity in their life-cycles and each is of great practical importance.

Eimeria avium, Silvestrini and Rivolta.

Eimeria avium is responsible for fatal epizoötics among game birds such as grouse, pheasants and partridges, and domestic poultry such as fowls, ducks, pigeons and turkeys, and can pass from any one of these hosts to any of the others with the same effect. The organism is parasitic in the alimentary tract of the host, affecting more especially the small intestine (duodenum) and the cæca, but in some cases penetrating to the liver and multiplying there (as in turkeys), producing necrotic cheesy patches, that ultimately become full of oöcysts. The gut is rendered very frail by the action of the parasites, its mucous membrane is greatly injured, and is often reduced to an almost structureless pulp, riddled with parasites (fig. 68). Infection is conveyed from host to host by the ingestion of food or drink contaminated with the oöcysts voided in the fæces of infected birds. Oval oöcysts from 24 µ to 35 µ long and from 14 µ to 20 µ broad are the means of infection. The oöcysts develop internally four sporocysts or spores, from each of which two sporozoites are produced. The life-history presents two phases: (1) The asexual multiplicative phase, schizogony, for the increase in numbers of the parasites within the same host; (2) the reproductive phase, following the formation of gametes (gametogony), leading to the production of resistant oöcysts, destined for the transference of the parasite to new hosts (sporogony).

The oöcysts usually reach the duodenum unharmed, with food or drink. Under the influence of the powerful digestive juices (especially the pancreatic) now encountered, the oöcysts soften, as do the sporocysts, and ultimately two sporozoites emerge from each sporocyst. The sporozoites are from 7 µ to 10 µ long, and each is vermicular with a uniform nucleus (fig. , A). After a short period of active movement in the gut, each sporozoite penetrates an epithelial cell (figs. 68 spz, 69, B), and once within, gradually becomes rounded (fig. 69, B, C). It grows rapidly, feeding on the contents of the host cell and living as a trophozoite (fig. 69, D). When the parasite is from 10 µ to 12 µ in diameter, usually multiplication by schizogony (fig. 69, E-H) begins. The nucleus of the parent cell, now called a schizont, divides into a number of portions that become arranged at the periphery (fig. 69, E). Cytoplasm collects around each nucleus (fig. 69, E, F) and gradually a group of daughter individuals (merozoites) is produced (fig. 69, G), the nucleus of each merozoite showing a karyosome.

The merozoites of Eimeria avium are arranged “en barillet,” like the segments of an orange (figs. 68 mz, 69, G), therein differing from those of E. schubergi, which are arranged “en rosace.” They separate from one another (fig. 69, H), penetrate other epithelial cells, where they may, in turn, become schizonts. Eight to fourteen merozoites are usually formed by each schizont, twenty have been found, while in cases of intense infection when space has become limited, the number may be only four.

After a number of generations of merozoites have been formed, a limit is reached both to the multiplicative capacity of the parasite and to the power of the bird to provide the invader with food. Consequently, resistant forms of the parasite are necessary, and the trophozoites begin to show sexual differentiation instead of forming schizonts, that is, gametogony commences.

Certain trophozoites store food and become large and granular. These are macrogametocytes (fig. 69, I, ♀). The microgametocytes (fig. 69, I, ♂) are smaller and far less granular. The macrogametocyte continues to grow, and becomes loaded with chromatoid and plastinoid granules (fig. 69, J, ♀), while the microgametocyte has its nucleus divide to form a number of bent, rod-like portions (fig. 69, J, ♂). The macrogametocyte gives rise to a single macrogamete, which forms a cyst wall for itself, leaving a thin spot (micropyle) for the entry of the male (fig 69, K, ♀). The microgametocyte gives rise to numerous small, biflagellate microgametes (fig. 69, K, ♂) around a large, central residual mass, from which they ultimately break free, and swim away. When a macrogamete is reached, the microgamete enters through the micropyle (fig. 69, L)—which then closes, thus excluding the other males—and applies itself to the female nucleus (fig. 69, M). Nuclear fusion occurs, the oöcyst (encysted zygote) being thus produced. Sporogony then ensues. The oöcyst (fig. 69, N) at first has its contents completely filling it. They then concentrate into a central spherical mass (fig. 69, O) which gradually becomes tetranucleate (fig. 69, P). Cytoplasm collects around each nucleus, and four sporoblasts are thus formed (fig. 69, Q). Each sporoblast becomes oval (fig. 69, R) and produces a sporocyst. Ultimately two sporozoites are formed in each sporocyst or spore, at first lying tête-bêche (fig. 69, S), but finally twisting to assume the position most convenient for emergence (fig. 69, T) when they reach a new host. The period of the life-cycle of Eimeria avium (as well as the details of the life-cycle) was determined by Fantham to be from eight to ten days, of which period schizogony occupies four to five days.

The method of infection is contaminative, by way of food or drink. Young birds are especially susceptible to infection. Certain birds, particularly older ones, may act as reservoirs of oöcysts, being continuously infected themselves, without showing any marked ill effects from the parasite, but being highly infectious to other birds. Much moisture retards the development of sporocysts considerably. The duration of vitality of the infective oöcysts has been determined experimentally to extend well over two years, and in certain cases longer. Eimeria avium is the causal agent of “white diarrhœa” or “white scour” in fowls, and of “blackhead” in turkeys.

Eimeria avium of birds and E. stiedæ of rabbits closely resemble one another, but are not the same parasite, for E. avium is not infective to rabbits, nor E. stiedæ to poultry.

Eimeria stiedæ, Lindemann, 1865.

Syn.: Monocystis stiedæ, Lindemann, 1865; Psorospermium cuniculi, Rivolta, 1878; Cytospermium hominis, Rivolta, 1878; Coccidium oviforme, Leuckart, 1879; Coccidium perforans, Leuckart, 1879; Coccidium cuniculi.

Eimeria stiedæ is parasitic in the gut epithelium (fig. 70), liver, and epithelium of the bile ducts of rabbits, and is usually considered to be the parasite very occasionally found in man. The life-cycle resembles that of Eimeria avium in its general outlines (see fig. 69) and therefore will not be detailed in full here. The oöcysts (fig. 71) are large, elongate-oval, greenish in fresh preparations and vary in size from 24 µ to 49 µ long and 12·8 µ to 28 µ broad, the gut forms being usually smaller than those occurring in the liver, owing to the more confined space in which they are formed. Formerly, the parasites in the liver were described under the name of Coccidium oviforme, while those from the intestine were termed Coccidium perforans. This distinction has now broken down.

The oöcysts are thick-walled, somewhat flattened at one pole, where a large micropyle is present. Four egg-shaped spores (sporocysts) are formed within, each about 12 µ to 15 µ long and 7 µ broad (fig. 72). The oöcysts are voided with the fæces. Sporogony takes, in nature, about three days in the excrement. Fæcal contamination of the food of rabbits results, and coccidian oöcysts are swallowed. Under the influence of the pancreatic juice of a new host, the sporozoites (fig. 72, a—c) are liberated from the spores and proceed to attack the epithelium and multiply within it, as in the case of Eimeria avium. From the gut, infection spreads to the liver, where multiplication of the parasite goes on actively, resulting in the formation of the whitish coccidial nodules, which may be very conspicuous (fig. 74). Proliferation of the connective tissue may occur around the coccidial nodules, which then contain large numbers of oöcysts in various stages of development. It is said that the oöcysts in the older nodules do not seem to be capable of further development. Schizogony (fig. 73) and gametogony in all stages can be found in both liver and gut.

Young rabbits often die of intestinal coccidiosis before infection of the liver occurs. The repeated schizogony of Eimeria stiedæ in the gut is sufficient to cause death.

The disease of cattle popularly known as “red dysentery” is also ascribed to the action of Eimeria stiedæ. The fæces of infected cattle show blood clots of various sizes and in severe cases watery diarrhœa is present. Acute cases end fatally in about two days. Numerous oöcysts, considered to be those of Eimeria stiedæ, occur in the fæces, and there is a heavy infection of the gut, especially the large intestine and rectum, all stages of the parasite being found in the epithelium. It is suspected that cattle contract the disease by feeding on fresh grass contaminated with oöcysts. The disease is recorded from Switzerland and from East Africa.

As before mentioned, Eimeria stiedæ is considered to be the organism found in a few cases in man, possibly acquired by eating the insufficiently cooked livers of diseased rabbits. These cases may now be described.

(a) Human Hepatic Coccidiosis.

(1) Gubler’s Case. A stone-breaker, aged 45, was admitted to a Paris hospital suffering from digestive disturbances and severe anæmia. On examination the liver was found to be enlarged and presented a prominent swelling, which was regarded as being due to Echinococcus. At the autopsy of the man, who succumbed to intercurrent peritonitis, twenty cysts were found averaging 2 to 3 cm. in diameter, and one measuring 12 to 15 cm. The caseous contents consisted of detritus, pus corpuscles, and oval-shelled formations, which were considered to be Distoma eggs, but which, in accordance with Leuckart’s conjecture, proved to be Coccidia.

(2) Dressler’s Case (Prague). Relates to three cysts, varying from the size of a hemp-seed to that of a pea, and containing Coccidia, found in a man’s liver.

(3) Sattler’s Case (Vienna). Coccidia were in this case observed in the dilated biliary duct of a human liver.

(4) Perls’ Case (Giessen). Perls discovered Coccidia in an old preparation of Sömmering’s agglomerations.

(5) Silcock’s Case (London). The patient, aged 50, who had fallen ill with serious symptoms, exhibited fever, enlarged liver and spleen, and had a dry, coated tongue. At the autopsy numerous caseous centres, mostly immediately beneath the surface, were found, while the contiguous parts of the liver were inflamed. Microscopical examination demonstrated numerous Coccidia in the hepatic cells as well as in the epithelium of the biliary ducts. A deposit of Coccidia was likewise found in the spleen, which the parasites had probably reached by means of the blood-stream.

(b) Human Intestinal Coccidiosis.

In two cadavers at the Pathological Institute in Berlin, Eimer found the epithelium of the intestine permeated by Coccidia. Railliet and Lucet’s case may be traced back to intestinal Coccidia, which were found in the fæces of a woman and her child, who had both suffered for some time from chronic diarrhœa. In other cases (Grassi, Rivolta), where only the existence of Coccidia in the fæces was known, it is doubtful whether the parasites originated in the intestine or in the liver.

(c) Doubtful Cases.

To these belong Virchow’s case where, in the liver of an elderly woman, a thick walled tumour measuring 9 to 11 mm. was found. Among the contents of this tumour there were oval formations 56 µ long, surrounded by two membranes and enclosing a number of round substances. Virchow considered these foreign bodies to be eggs of pentastomes in various stages of development, others consider them to be Coccidia.

The Coccidia which Podwyssotzki claims to have seen in the liver of a man, not only in the liver cells, but also in the nuclei, are also problematic. The parasite was called Caryophagus hominis.

Again, other explanations can be given to an observation by Thomas, on the occurrence of Coccidium oviforme in a cerebral tumour of a woman aged 40. The growth was as large as a pea and surrounded by a bony substance.

Genus. Isospora, Aimé Schneider, 1881.

Syn.: Diplospora, Labbé, 1893.

Belonging to the section Disporea, that is, forming only two spores, each with four sporozoites.

Isospora bigemina, Stiles, 1891.

Syn.: “Cytospermium villorum intestinalium canis et felis,” Rivolta, 1874; “Coccidium Rivolta,” Grassi, 1882; Coccidium bigeminum, Stiles, 1891.

This parasite lives in the intestinal villi of dogs, cats, and the polecat (Mustela putorius, L.). According to Stiles, the oöcyst divides into two equal ellipsoidal portions or sporoblasts which become spores and then each forms four sporozoites. The oöcysts of this species vary from 22 µ to 40 µ in length and from 19 µ to 28 µ in breadth. Each spore is 10 µ to 18 µ long and contains four sporozoites. The parasites live and multiply, not only in the gut epithelium, but also in the connective tissue of the intestinal submucosa. Wasielewski has seen merozoites in the gut of the cat.

Isospora bigemina (fig. 75) appears to occur also in man, for Virchow published a case which was communicated to him by Kjellberg, and attributed the illness to this parasite. Possibly also it would be more correct to ascribe the observation of Railliet and Lucet, which is mentioned under “Human Intestinal Coccidiosis,” p. , to this species, as the Coccidia in that case were distinguished by their diminutive size (length 15 µ, breadth 10 µ). The case communicated by Grunow may also possibly refer to Isospora bigemina. Roundish or oval structures of 6 µ to 13 µ in diameter occurred in the mucous membrane of the gut and in the fæces of a case of enteritis.

Doubtful Species.

In literature many other statements are found as to the occurrence of Coccidia-like organisms in different diseases of man. In some of the cases the parasites proved to be fungi. This was the case with the parasites of a severe skin disease of man, formerly called Coccidioides immitis and Coccidioides pyogenes. Other statements are founded on misapprehensions, or are still much disputed. If reference is here made to “Eimeria hominis,” R. Blanchard, 1895, this is done on the authority of the investigator mentioned. The structures in question are nucleated spindle-shaped bodies of very different lengths (18 µ to 100 µ), which either occurred isolated or were enclosed in large globular or oval cysts, alone or with a larger tuberculated body (“residual body”). These formations were found by J. Künstler and A. Pitres in the pleural exudation removed from a man by tapping. The man was employed on the ships plying between Bordeaux and the Senegal River.

Blanchard looks upon the fusiform bodies as merozoites and the cysts as schizonts of a Coccidium. On the other hand, Moniez declares the spindle bodies to be the ova and the supposed residual bodies to be “floating ovaries” of an Echinorhynchus.

Severi’s “monocystid Gregarines,” which were taken from the lung tissue of a still-born child, are also quite problematical.

No less doubtful are the bodies which Perroncito calls Coccidium jalinum, and which he found in severe diseases of the intestine in human beings, pigs, and guinea-pigs; Borini also reported another case.

Order. Hæmosporidia, Danilewsky emend. Schaudinn.

The Hæmosporidia are a group of blood parasites, comprising forms differing greatly among themselves. Some of the forms need much further investigation. However, there are certain true Hæmosporidia which present close affinities with the Coccidia, leading Doflein to use the term Coccidiomorpha for the two orders conjoined.

The Hæmosporidia present the following general characteristics:—

(1) They are parasites of either red or white blood corpuscles of vertebrates during one period of their life-history.

(2) They exhibit alternation of generations—asexual phases or schizogony alternating with sexual phases or sporogony—as do the Coccidia.

(3) There is also an alternation of hosts in those cases which have so far been completely investigated. The schizogony occurs in the blood or internal organs of some vertebrates while the sporogony occurs in an invertebrate, such as a blood-sucking arthropod or leech.

(4) Unlike the Coccidia, resistant spores in sporocysts are not generally produced, such protective phases in the life-cycle being unnecessary, as the Hæmosporidia are contained within either the vertebrate or invertebrate host during the whole of their life.

The Hæmosporidia may be considered for convenience under five main types:—

(1) The Plasmodium or Hæmamœba type. This includes the malarial parasites of man and of birds. The asexual multiplicative or schizogonic phases occur inside red blood corpuscles and are amœboid. They produce distinctive, darkish pigment termed melanin or hæmozoin. Infected blood drawn and cooled on a slide may exhibit “exflagellation” of the male gametocytes, i.e., the formation of filamentous male gametes. The invertebrate host is a mosquito. The malarial parasites of man are discussed at length on p. . Similar pigmented hæmamœboid parasites have been described in antelopes, dogs, and other mammals, and even reptiles.

(2) The Halteridium type. The trophozoite stage inside the red blood corpuscle is halter-shaped. Pigment is produced, especially near the ends of the organism. The parasites occur in the blood of birds. The invertebrate host of H. columbæ of pigeons in Europe, Africa, Brazil and India, is a hippoboscid fly, belonging to the genus Lynchia.

Halteridium parasites are common in the blood of passerine birds, such as pigeons, finches, stone owls, Java sparrows, parrots, etc. The Halteridium embraces or grows around the nucleus of the host red cell without displacing the nucleus. Young forms and multiplicative stages of H. columbæ have been found in leucocytes in the lungs of the pigeon (fig. 76, 8-12). Male and female forms (gametocytes) are seen in the blood (fig. 76, 3a, 3b). The cytoplasm of the male gametocytes is pale-staining and the nucleus is elongate, while the cytoplasm of the females is darker and the nucleus is smaller and round. Formation of male gametes from male gametocytes (the so-called process of “exflagellation”) may occur on a slide of drawn infected blood, also fertilization, and formation of the oökinete, as first seen by MacCallum. The correct generic name for Halteridia is, apparently, Hæmoproteus. Wasielewski (1913), working on H. danilewskyi (var. falconis), in kestrels, finds that the halteridium may be pathogenic to nestlings. The cycle of H. noctuæ described by Schaudinn (1904) lacks confirmation. The account of the life-cycle of H. columbæ given by Aragão (1908) is illustrated in fig. 76. It agrees with the work of Sergent (1906–7) and Gonder (1915). Mrs. Adie (1915) states that the cycle in Lynchia is like that of a Plasmodium.

(3) The Leucocytozoön type. The trophozoites and gametocytes occur within mononuclear leucocytes and young red cells (erythroblasts) in the blood of birds. Laveran and França consider that the Leucocytozoa occur in erythrocytes. The host cells are often greatly altered by the parasites, becoming hypertrophied and the ends usually drawn into horn-like processes (fig. 77), though some remain rounded. Leucocytozoa are limited to birds, and very rarely produce pigment. Male and female forms (gametocytes) are distinguishable in the blood (fig. 77), and the formation of male gametes (“exflagellation”) may occur in drawn blood.

The Leucocytozoa were first seen by Danilewsky in 1884. They are usually oval or spherical. It is not easy sometimes to distinguish the altered host cell from the parasite, as the nucleus of the former is pushed to one side by the leucocytozoön. The cytoplasm of the female parasite stains deeply, and the nucleus is rather small, containing a karyosome. In the male the cytoplasm stains lightly and the nucleus is larger, with a loose, granular structure.

Many species of Leucocytozoa are recorded, but schizogony has only been described by Fantham (1910) in L. lovati in the spleen of the grouse (Lagopus scoticus), and by Moldovan (1913) in L. ziemanni in the internal organs of screech-owls.

M. and A. Leger (1914) propose to classify Leucocytozoa, provisionally, according as the host cells are fusiform or rounded.

(4) The Hæmogregarina type. Included herein are many parasites of red blood corpuscles, with a few (the leucocytogregarines) parasitic in the white cells of certain mammals and a few birds. They are not amœboid but gregarine-like, vermicular or sausage-shaped (fig. 78). They do not produce pigment. They are widely distributed among the vertebrata, but are most numerous in cold-blooded vertebrates (fishes, amphibia and reptiles). The hæmogregarines of aquatic hosts are transmitted by leeches, those of terrestrial hosts by arthropods.

The nucleus of hæmogregarines is usually near the middle of the parasite, but may be situated nearer one end. The body of the parasite may be lodged in a capsule (“cytocyst”). There is much variation in size and appearance among hæmogregarines. Some are small (Lankesterella); some attack the nucleus of the host cell (Karyolysus); others have full grown vermicules larger than the containing host corpuscle, and so the hæmogregarines bend on themselves in the form of U (fig. 78, b). Schizogony often occurs in the internal organs of the host, sometimes in the circulating blood.

The hæmogregarines occurring in the white cells (mononuclears or polymorphonuclears) of mammals have been referred to a separate genus, Leucocytogregarina (Porter) or Hepatozoön (Miller). Such leucocytogregarines are known in the dog (fig. 79), rat, mouse, palm-squirrel, rabbit, cat, etc. Schizogony of these forms occurs in the internal organs, such as the liver, lung and bone-marrow of the hosts. They are apparently transmitted by ectoparasitic arthropods, such as ticks, mites, and lice.

A few hæmogregarines are known to be parasitic in the red blood corpuscles of mammals. Such are H. gerbilli in the Indian field rat, Gerbillus indicus; H. balfouri (jaculi) in the jerboa, Jaculus jaculus, and a few species briefly described from marsupials. These parasites do not form pigment.

Strict leucocytic gregarines have been described from a few birds by Aragão and by Todd.

The sporogony of hæmogregarines is only known in a few cases, and in those affinity with the Coccidia is exhibited. In fact, the Hæmogregarines are now classified by some authors with the Coccidia.

(5) The Babesia or Piroplasma type. These are small parasites of red blood corpuscles of mammals. They do not produce pigment. They are pear-shaped, round or amœboid in Babesia, bacilliform and oval in other forms referred to this group. Piroplasms are transmitted by ticks. These parasites are described at length on p. .

THE MALARIAL PARASITES OF MAN.

Malaria, otherwise known as febris intermittens, chill-fever, ague, marsh fever, paludism, etc., is the name given to a disease of man, which begins with fever. It has been known since ancient times and is distributed over almost all the world, although very unevenly, but does not occur in waterless deserts and the Polar regions. In many places, especially in the civilized countries of Central Europe, the disease is extinct or occurs only sporadically, and large tracts of land have become free from malaria.

The rhythmical course of the fever is characteristic. It begins apparently suddenly with chilliness or typical shivering, whilst the temperature of the body rises, the pulse becomes low and tense and the number of beats of the pulse increases considerably. After half to two hours the heat stage begins. The patient himself feels the rise of his temperature (shown by feeling of heat, dry tongue, headache, thirst). The temperature may reach 41°C or more. At the same time there is sensitiveness in the region of the spleen and enlargement of that organ. After four to six hours an improvement takes place, and with profuse perspiration the body temperature falls rapidly, not often below normal. After the attack the patient feels languid, but otherwise well until certain prodromal symptoms (heaviness in the body, headache) which were not noticed at first, denote the approach of another attack of fever, which proceeds in the same way.

The intervals between the attacks are of varying length which permit of a distinction in the kinds of fever. If the attacks intermit one day, occurring on the first, third and fifth days of the illness and always at the same time of day, it is termed febris tertiana; if two days occur between fever days, it is called febris quartana. In the case of the fever recurring daily, later writers speak of typical febris quotidiana. But a quotidian fever may arise when two tertian fevers differing by about twenty-four hours exist at the same time (febris tertiana duplex). The patient has a daily attack, but the fever of the first, third and fifth days differs in some point (hour of occurrence, height of temperature, duration of cold or hot stage) from the fever of the second, fourth and sixth days. Similarly, two or three quartan fevers which differ by about twenty-four hours each may be observed together (febris quartana duplex or triplex); in the latter case the result is also a quotidian fever.

Two kinds of tertian fever are differentiated—a milder form occurring especially in the spring (spring tertian fever), and a more severe form appearing in the summer and autumn in warmer districts, especially in the tropics (summer or autumn fever, febris æstivo-autumnalis, febris tropica, febris perniciosa). The latter often becomes a quotidian fever.

All the afore-mentioned infections are termed acute. They are distinguished from the very different chronic malarial infection by the frequent occurrence of relapses, which finally lead to changes of some organs and particularly of the blood. The relapses are then generally marked by an irregular course of fever.

The term masked malaria is used when any disturbance of the state of health of a periodic character shows itself and disappears after treatment with quinine. Generally it is a question of neuralgia.

That intermittent fever was an infectious disease, although not one which was transmitted direct from man to man, had been assumed for a long time. Therefore it was natural, at a time when bacteriology was triumphing, to look for a living agent causing infection in malaria, which search was, seemingly, successful (Klebs, Tomasi-Crudeli, 1879). Hence it was not surprising that the discovery of the real malarial parasites in November, 1880, by the military doctor A. Laveran in Constantine (Algeria), at first met with violent opposition, even after Richard (1882) had confirmed it and Marchiafava, Celli, Grassi and others, had further extended it. Not that the existence of structures found in the blood of malaria patients by Laveran and Richard was denied; on the contrary, the investigations of the opponents furnished many valuable discoveries, but the organisms were differently interpreted and considered to be degeneration products of red blood corpuscles. Only when Marchiafava and Celli (1885) saw movements in the parasites, which Laveran called Oscillaria malariæ and later Hæmatozoön malariæ, was their animal nature admitted and the parasites were named Plasmodium malariæ. Shortly before this, Gerhardt (1884) had stated that the disease could be transmitted by the injection of the blood of a malarial patient to a healthy person.

This supplied the starting point for further investigations, which were made not exclusively, but principally, by Italian investigators (Golgi, Marchiafava and Celli, Bignami and Bastianelli, Grassi and Feletti, Mannaberg, Romanowsky, Osier, Thayer and others). In 1885 Golgi described the asexual cycle in the blood, in the case of the quartan parasite. These investigations, after attention had been drawn by Danilewsky (1890) to the occurrence of similar endoglobular parasites in birds, were extended to the latter (Grassi and Feletti, Celli and Sanfelice, Kruse, Labbé and others).

The result was as follows: Malaria in man (and birds) is the result of peculiar parasites included in the Sporozoa by Metchnikoff, which parasites live in the erythrocytes, grow in size and finally “sporulate,” that is, separate into a number of “spores” which leave the erythrocytes and infect other blood corpuscles. Morphologically and biologically several species (and respectively several varieties) of malarial parasites may be distinguished, on which the different intermittent forms depend. Transmission of the blood of patients to healthy people produces a malarial affection which corresponds in character to the fever of the patient from whom the inoculation was made. The combined types of fever (tertiana duplex, quartana duplex or triplex) are explained by the fact that the patient harbours two or three groups of parasites which differ in their development by about twenty-four hours, whilst the irregular fevers depend on deviation from the typical course of development of the parasites. In addition to stages of the parasites which could easily be arranged in a developmental series concurrent with the course of the disease, other phases of the parasites also became known, such as spheres, crescents, polymitus forms, which seemed not to be included in the series and, therefore, were very differently interpreted.

The decision reached at the beginning of the last decade of the last century, which found expression in comprehensive statements (Mannaberg, Ziemann and others), only concerned a part of the complete development of the malarial parasites. No one could with any degree of certainty demonstrate how man became infected, nor were there reliable hypotheses based on analogy with other parasites concerning the exit of the excitants of malaria from the infected person and their further behaviour. Numerous hypotheses had been advanced, but none was able to elucidate the various observations made from time to time in dealing with malaria. One hypothesis only seemed to have a better foundation. Manson (1894), who knew from his own experience the part played by mosquitoes in the development of Filaria from the blood of man, applied this also to the malarial parasites living in the blood, whereby at least the way was indicated by which the Hæmosporidia could leave man. The parasites were said finally to get into water through mosquitoes which had sucked the blood of malarial patients, and the germ spread thence to men who drank the water. In some cases the parasites were supposed to reach man by the inhaling of the dust of dried marshes. On the other hand, Bignami believed that the mosquitoes were infected in the open air by malarial parasites which occurred there in an unknown stage and the insects transmitted the germs to man when biting. R. Koch combined both hypotheses, without, however, producing positive proof. R. Ross, then (1897–8) an English military doctor in India, was the first to succeed in this. He had been encouraged by Manson to study the fate of malarial Plasmodia which had entered the intestine of mosquitoes with malaria-infected blood, especially in the case of the Plasmodium (Proteosoma) living in the blood of birds. He showed that the Proteosoma penetrate the intestinal wall of the mosquitoes, grow and develop into large cysts which produce innumerable rod-like germs, which burst into the body cavity and penetrate the salivary glands. Ross allowed mosquitoes to suck the blood of birds affected by malaria, and some nine days later, let the infected mosquitoes which had been isolated suck healthy birds. After five to nine days Proteosoma were found to occur in the blood of the birds used. The Proteosoma and Halteridium of birds were also further investigated by MacCallum (1897–8), Koch and others, and important results followed.

In any case Ross (1898) had clearly established the importance of mosquitoes in the spread of malaria among birds. It was now only a question of proving whether, and how far, mosquitoes were concerned with human malaria. Ross himself worked to this end. Here the experiments of Italian investigators (Bignami, Bastianelli, Grassi) were of importance. These investigators studied the fate of malarial parasites in man, produced malaria in men experimentally by the bites of infected mosquitoes, and established that only mosquitoes belonging to the genus Anopheles were concerned, and not species of Culex. These latter are only able to transmit Proteosoma to birds. It is true that Culex can ingest the human malarial parasites, but the latter do not develop in them. Development only occurs in species of Anopheles. In Anopheles (and similarly for Proteosoma in Culex) sexual reproduction takes place; crescents, spheres and polymitus forms are necessary stages of development in the mosquito.

With these discoveries the campaign against malaria became more definite. It was directed partly against the transmitters, whose biology and life-cycle were more thoroughly investigated, instead of merely against the infection of the adult Anopheles. The latter do not, as was believed for some time, transmit the malarial germs to their offspring. They always infect themselves from human beings, whereby the relapses appearing in early summer, and the latent infection, especially of children of natives, play a principal part (Stephens and Christophers, Koch). Further, the crusade was directed against the infection of man by the bites of Anopheles. Important results have been obtained in these directions. Low and Sambon in 1900 lived in a mosquito-screened hut in a malarial part of the Roman Campagna for three of the most malarious months and did not contract the disease. In the same year Dr. P. T. Manson was infected with malaria by infected mosquitoes sent from Italy. The rôle of mosquitoes having been proved, it may be hoped that ultimately the eradication of malaria, or at least a considerable restriction of it, will be achieved.

It is of importance to record that, although malarial parasites occur in mammals (monkeys, bats, etc.) the human ones are not transmissible to mammals, not even to monkeys. The species, therefore, are specific to the different hosts (Dionisi, Kossel, Ziemann, Vassall).

An important work dealing with the modern applications of the mosquito-malaria theory in all parts of the Tropics was published by Sir Ronald Ross in 1911. It is entitled “The Prevention of Malaria” (John Murray, London, 21s.).

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MALARIAL PARASITES OF MAN.

The commencement of the developmental cycle and of the infection of man, is the sporozoites (fig. , 1) which are passed into the blood of a person by the bite of an infected mosquito. Prior to this the parasites collect in the excretory ducts of the salivary glands (fig. 80, 27) of the Anopheles. The sporozoites are elongate and spindle-shaped, 10 µ to 20 µ long and 1 µ to 2 µ broad, with an oval nucleus situated in the middle. They are able to glide, perform peristaltic contractions, or curve laterally. Schaudinn has studied the penetration of the red blood corpuscles (fig. 80, 2) by the sporozoites in the case of the living tertian parasite. The process takes forty to sixty minutes in drawn blood. After its entrance the parasite, which is now called a trophozoite, contracts, and becomes an active amœbula (fig. 80, 3). It develops a food vacuole and grows at the expense of the invaded blood corpuscle (fig. 80, 4), which is shown by the appearance of pigment granules (transformed hæmoglobin) in it. When the maximum size is attained, multiplication by schizogony (fig. 80, 5-7) begins with a division of the nucleus, which is followed by further divisions of the daughter nuclei, the number of which varies up to 16 or even 32, depending on the species of the parasite. Then the cytoplasm divides into as many portions as there are nuclei, the result being a structure suggestive of the spokes of a wheel or of a daisy, the centre of the resulting rosette being occupied by dark pigment. Finally, the parts separate from one another, leaving behind a residual body containing the pigment, and the daughter forms issue into the blood plasma as merozoites (fig. 80, 7). They are actively amœboid (fig. 80, 8) and soon begin to enter other blood corpuscles of their host, for the entry into which thirty to sixty minutes are necessary, according to Schaudinn’s observations.

Here they behave like sporozoites which previously entered and again produce merozoites. This process is repeated until the number of parasites is so large that, at the next migration of the merozoites, the body of the person infected reacts with an attack of fever, which is repeated with the occurrence of the next or following generations.

The growth and schizogony last different times, according to the species of the parasite, about forty-eight hours in the case of the parasite of febris tertiana or tropica, and seventy-two hours for the quartan parasite. The various intermittent forms produced by them depend on this specific difference in the malarial parasites.

The schizogony can, however, only be repeated a certain number of times, supposing that the disease has not been checked prematurely by the administration of quinine, which is able to kill the parasites. It appears that after a number of attacks of fever the conditions of existence in man are unfavourable for the malarial parasites, and this brings about the production of other forms which have long been known, but also long misunderstood (spheres, crescents, polymitus). The merozoites in this case no longer grow into schizonts, or at least not all of them, but become sexual individuals called gametocytes (fig. 80, 9-12), which only start their further development when they have reached the intestine of Anopheles. This does not take place in every case, nor with all the gametocytes which exist in the blood of patients with intermittent fever. Of those parasites which remain in the human blood the male ones (microgametocytes) soon perish, the females (macrogametocytes) persist for some long time, and perhaps at last acquire the capacity of increasing by schizogony. They might thus form merozoites which behave in the body as if they had proceeded from ordinary schizonts (fig. 80, 13c-17c). If their number increases sufficiently, in course of time the patient, who was apparently recovering, has a new series of fever attacks, or relapses, without there having been a new infection. This is the view of Schaudinn, who from researches of his own concluded that relapses were brought about by a sort of parthenogenetic reproduction of macrogametocytes. R. Ross, on the contrary, believes that in the relatively healthy periods the number of parasites in the blood falls below that necessary to provoke febrile symptoms; relapses then result merely from increase in the numbers of the parasites present in the individual. Ross’s view is now generally accepted.

If the gametocytes, which are globular, or in the pernicious or malignant tertian parasite crescentic (fig. 81), gain access to the intestine of an Anopheline, they mature. The macrogametocytes extrude a part of their nuclear substance (fig. , 13a, 14a) and thereby become females or macrogametes. The microgametocytes, on the other hand, undergo repeated nuclear division, preparation for this being made apparently whilst in the blood of man. This results in the formation of threadlike bodies which move like flagella and finally detach themselves from the residual body (fig. 80, 13b, 14b). These are the males or microgametes (fig. 80, 15b).

Copulation takes place in the stomach of the Anopheline (fig. , 16). A microgamete penetrates a macrogamete and coalesces with it. The fertilized females elongate very soon and are called oökinetes or “vermicules” (figs. 80, 17; 82). They penetrate the walls of the stomach, pierce the epithelium (fig. 80, 18, 19), and remain lying between it and the superficial stratum (tunica elastico-muscularis). Then they become rounded and gradually develop into cysts which grow larger and are finally visible to the naked eye, being called oöcysts (figs. 80, 20-24; 83). Their size at the beginning is about 5 µ, the maximum that they attain is 60 µ, only exceptionally are they larger.

The sporulation (figs. 80, 21-25; 84), which now follows, begins with repeated multiple fission of the nucleus. Long before the definitive number of nuclei, which varies with the individual, is attained the protoplasm, according to Grassi, begins to segment around the individual large nuclei but without separating completely into cell areas. According to Schaudinn, however, there is a condensation of the outstanding protoplasmic strands. It is certain that the number of nuclei increases with simultaneous decrease in size. They soon appear on the surface of the strands or sporoblasts, surround themselves with some cytoplasm and then elongate (fig. 84). In this manner the sporozoites are formed and break away from the unused remains of the cytoplasmic strands of the sporoblasts (fig. , 26). The number of the sporozoites in an oöcyst varies from several hundreds to ten thousand.

The sporulation is influenced in its duration by the external temperature (Grassi, Jansci, Schoo). In the tertian parasite it takes place quickest at a temperature of 25° to 30° C. and takes eight to nine days. A temperature a few degrees lower has a retarding effect (eighteen to nineteen days at 18° to 20° C). A still lower one has a restraining or even destructive effect. Temperatures over 35° C. also exercise a harmful effect. The malignant tertian parasite seems to need a somewhat higher temperature and the quartan parasite a lower one.

The sporozoites of the various malarial parasites show no specific differences. They were stated by Schaudinn to occur in three forms, and these were described as indifferent (neuter), female and male. There is, however, little or no evidence for this hypothetical differentiation. The last were said to perish prematurely, that is, in the oöcyst. The others after the rupture of the oöcysts enter the body cavity of the Anophelines, whence they are carried along in the course of the blood. Finally they penetrate the salivary glands (fig. 80, 27) probably by their own activity, break through their epithelia and accumulate in the salivary duct (fig. 80, 27). At the next bite by the mosquito they are transmitted to the blood-vessels of man.

The Species of Malarial Parasites of Man.

In view of the differences in opinion regarding “species” and “varieties,” the dispute whether the malarial parasites of man represent one species with several varieties, or several species is almost superfluous. If necessary two genera may be distinguished.

The parasites of the tertian and quartan fever are alike in that their gametocytes have a rounded shape (figs. , 12, 13), whilst the corresponding stages of the pernicious or malignant tertian parasites are crescentic (figs. 81, ). These differences are used by some writers as the distinguishing characteristic of two genera: Plasmodium, Marchiafava and Celli, 1885, for the first mentioned species; Laverania, Grassi and Feletti, 1889, for the pernicious or malignant tertian parasite. Whether there is a genuine quotidian fever and accordingly a special quotidian parasite is still disputed.

These parasites are treated in practical detail in Stephens and Christophers’ “Practical Study of Malaria,” 3rd edition, 1908.

Plasmodium vivax, Grassi and Feletti, 1890.

Syn.: Hæmamœba vivax, Grassi and Feletti, 1890; Plasmodium malariæ var. tertianæ, Celli and Sanfelice, 1891; Hæmamœba laverani var. tertiana, Labbé, 1894; Hæmosporidium tertianum, Lewkowitz, 1897; Plasmodium malariæ tertianum, Labbé, 1899: Hæmamœba malariæ var. magna, Laveran, 1900, p.p.; Hæmamœba malariæ var. tertianæ, Laveran, 1901.

This species, P. vivax, is the causal agent of the simple or spring tertian fever and is, therefore, named directly the tertian or benign tertian parasite (figs. , 3-8; 85). During the afebrile period in the patient, the young trophozoites or amœbulæ appear on or in the red blood corpuscles as pale bodies of 1·5 µ to 2 µ diameter which at first show only slow amœboid movements. Their nucleus is difficult to recognize in the early stage. Soon the food vacuole is formed and this grows concomitantly with the trophozoite and the parasite has a ring-like appearance. Afterwards the vacuole diminishes, and at this period the first brownish melanin granule appears. From this time the activity and number of the pigment granules increase with continuous growth. When the parasite has grown to about one-third the diameter of the erythrocyte the latter shows characteristic red Schüffner’s dots or “fine stippling,” after staining with Romanowsky’s solution. Later, after about twenty-four hours, the blood corpuscles begin to grow pale, then to increase in size, and after thirty-six hours, that is, about twelve hours before the next attack of fever, schizogony of the parasite is initiated by the division of the nucleus. The parasite at this time occupies half to two-thirds of the enlarged blood corpuscle. The daughter nuclei continue dividing until sixteen, and occasionally twenty-four, daughter nuclei are produced. The pigment which, up till now lies nearer the periphery, moves to the middle, while the nuclei lie nearer the surface.

Around each nucleus a portion of cytoplasm collects and thus young merozoites are produced. These separate from each other and from the little residual masses which contain the melanin and pass from the blood corpuscles, which now can hardly be recognized, to the blood plasma, where they soon attack new erythrocytes.

The migration of the merozoites initiates a new attack of fever and two groups of tertian parasites in the blood, differing in development by about twenty-four hours, are the conditions for febris tertiana duplex.

After a lengthy duration of fever the gametocytes (figs. 80, 9—12) appear. They are uninucleate. The microgametocytes are about the size of fully developed schizonts, the macrogametocytes are somewhat larger. Their further development takes place in Anophelines.

The chief distinctive characteristics of the simple tertian parasite, as seen in infected blood, are:—(1) The infected red-cell is usually enlarged; (2) the presence of fine red granules known as Schüffner’s dots in the red blood corpuscles, after Romanowsky staining; (3) the fragile appearance of the parasite compared with other species. Large forms are pigmented, irregular and “flimsy-looking,” sometimes appearing to consist of separate parts. Irregularity of contour is common.

Ahmed Emin (1914) has described a small variety of P. vivax.

Plasmodium malariæ, Laveran.

Syn.: Oscillaria malariæ, Laveran, p.p., 1883; Hæmamœba malariæ, Gr. et Fel., 1890; Plasmodium malariæ var. quartanæ, Celli et Sanfel., 1891; Hæmamœba laverani var. quartana, Labbé, 1894; Hæmosporidium quartanæ, Lewkowitz, 1897; Plasmodium malariæ quartanum, Labbé, 1899; Plasmodium golgii, Sambon, 1902; Laverania malariæ, Jancso, 1905 nec Grassi et Fel. 1890; Hæmomœba malariæ var. quartanæ; Lav., 1901.

Plasmodium malariæ is the parasite of quartan malaria (fig. 86). The trophozoites of the quartan parasite differ from the corresponding stages of the tertian parasite in that their motility is less and soon ceases. They differ also in their slower growth, by the early disappearance of the food vacuole, by the more marked formation of the dark brown pigment, and by the fact that the red blood corpuscles attacked are not altered either in colour or size.

When the parasites have grown almost to the size of the erythrocytes schizogony occurs. The pigment granules arrange themselves in lines radiating towards the centre and the merozoites are also radially disposed in groups of 6, 8, 10 or even 12, but are often arranged less regularly. The whole development, growth and schizogony, occupies seventy-two hours.

The appearance of quartana duplex or triplex is conditional on the presence in the blood of the patient of two or three groups of Plasmodia differing in their development by twenty-four hours.

The chief distinctive characters of the quartan parasite are: (1) The erythrocyte is unchanged in size; (2) the rings are compact and show pigment early; in the larger forms the chromatin is dense and relatively plentiful; (3) the pigment, which is relatively well-marked, may be arranged at the periphery.

Laverania malariæ, Grassi and Feletti, 1890 = Plasmodium falciparum, Welch, 1897.

Syn.: Plasmodium malariæ var. quotidianæ, Celli et Sanf., 1891; Hæmamœba malariæ præcox, Gr. et Fel., 1892 (nec H. præcox, Gr. et Fel., 1890); Hæmamœba laverani, Labbé, 1894; Hæmatozoön falciparum, Welch, 1897; Hæmosporidium undecimanæ and H. sedecimanæ and H. vigesimo-tertianæ, Lewkowitz, 1897; Hæmamœba malariæ parva, Lav., 1900; Plasmodium præcox, Dofl., 1901; Plasmodium immaculatum, Schaud., 1902; Plasmodium falciparum, Blanch., 1905.

The names most commonly used for the parasite of malignant tertian malaria are Plasmodium falciparum and Laverania malariæ.

The summer and autumn fever (febris æstivo-autumnalis), also called malignant tertian or sub-tertian, is caused by a malarial parasite which is distinguished by the small size of its schizont, while the gametocytes are crescentic (figs. , 88).

Most authors identify this kind of fever or the parasites which cause it (Laverania malariæ) with the pernicious malaria of the tropics. Ziemann, however, repeatedly has drawn attention to certain small but definite differences between the usual malignant tertian or pernicious parasites which occur in the tropics and the tropical parasites of some malarial districts, particularly of West Africa, and insists that at least two varieties or sub-species occur. Other investigators distinguish from this or these forms a quotidian parasite. On the other hand, the assertion is made that there are no specific differences, but that the malignant or pernicious tertian parasite which normally needs forty-eight hours for its development in the blood of man, can also develop in twenty-four hours. The establishment of the duration of the development is a matter of especial difficulty, because the stages of schizogony are far less numerous in the peripheral blood than in that of the internal organs. It is also stated that the tropical parasite very seldom forms crescentic but rather rounded gametocytes. According to such an observation the organism would belong to Plasmodium and not to Laverania. The question whether the tropical fevers are caused by two different parasites does not seem to be definitely settled.

The young trophozoite of the malignant, pernicious tertian, or sub-tertian parasite (fig. 87) are but slightly active and are very small, even after the formation of the comparatively large food vacuole, which makes the body appear annular (“signet ring” stage). Often two and even more parasites are found in one blood corpuscle.

Fully grown they only attain two-thirds or less of the diameter of the erythrocytes, which display an inclination to shrink and then appear darker than the normal (brass-coloured). In the early stage dots or stippling—sometimes called Maurer’s dots—appear on the blood corpuscles as in those attacked by the ordinary tertian parasite (Plasmodium vivax), but the Maurer’s dots are relatively coarse and few, and are not easily stained. These dots were first described by Stephens and Christophers in 1900, and subsequently by Maurer in 1902.

About thirty hours after the entrance into the blood corpuscles, the parasites are rarely found in the peripheral blood, but they are present in the internal organs, and especially in the spleen. The schizogony, which now begins in the internal organs, proceeds on the same lines as that of the quartan parasite, that is, usually with the merozoites radially arranged around a central agglomeration of dark brown pigment.

The number of merozoites formed is quoted differently, e.g., 8 to 24, on an average 12 to 16. However, according to the recent cultural researches of J. G. and D. Thomson (1913) the number of merozoites of P. falciparum is 32. D. Thomson, from examination of spleen smears at autopsy, also concludes that the number of merozoites may reach 32. During their formation the blood corpuscle which is attacked gets paler and disintegrates.

The gametocytes which finally appear are attenuated, curved bodies, rounded at each end and known as crescents (figs. 81, 88), and are provided with a nucleus and with coarse pigment masses. In the males the pigment is more scattered than in the females, where it is around the nucleus. Their length is 9 µ to 14 µ, and their breadth is 2 µ to 3 µ. At first they are still in the pale blood corpuscles, later they free themselves and are found in numbers in the peripheral blood in cases of pernicious malaria of Southern Europe and the tropics, while, on the other hand, they occur much more rarely in the peripheral blood in West African malignant tertian. Their further development takes place under the same conditions as in the other malarial parasites.

D. Thomson (1914), from studies of autopsy smears, has shown that crescents develop chiefly in the bone-marrow and spleen, and take about ten days to grow into the adult state in the internal organs. He believes that crescents are produced from ordinary asexual spores. Quinine, he states, has no direct destructive action on crescents, but it destroys the asexual source of supply.

The sporozoites of Laverania malariæ (P. falciparum) are represented in fig. 89.

The principal distinctive characters of the malignant tertian parasite are: (1) The ring forms are very small, occasionally bacilliform, and may be marginal (“accolé” of Laveran); (2) the larger trophozoites are often ovoid, and about one-third or one-half of the erythrocyte in size; (3) the infected red cells sometimes show coarse stippling (Maurer’s dots); (4) the gametocytes, or sexual forms, are crescentic in shape.

J. W. W. Stephens (1914) has described a new malarial parasite of man; it is called Plasmodium tenue. It is very amœboid, with scanty cytoplasm and much chromatin, sometimes rod-like or irregular. The parasite was described from a blood-smear of an Indian child. The creation of a new species for this parasite has been criticized by Balfour and Wenyon, and by Craig.

Plasmodium relictum, Sergent, 1907.

Syn.: Plasmodium præcox, Grassi and Feletti, 1890; Plasmodium danilewskyi, Gr. et Fel., 1890; Hæmamœba relicta, Gr. et Fel., 1891; Proteosoma grassii, Labbé, 1894.

Hæmamœboid, pigment-producing, malarial parasites are often found in birds. Like the human malarial parasites they have been variously named. Labbé created the genus Proteosoma for them, and this name is still often used as a distinctive one unofficially. The correct name is stated to be either Plasmodium relictum or P. præcox, or possibly even P. danilewskyi, assuming that there is only one species. The nomenclature of the malarial parasites is most confused. The avian malarial parasites are transmitted by Culicine mosquitoes.

The organism was discovered by Grassi in the blood of birds in Italy, and causes a fatal disease in partridges in Hungary. Sparrows are affected in India, and it was this Plasmodium in which Ross first traced the development of a malarial parasite in a mosquito. The parasite may be transmitted from bird to bird by blood-inoculation, canaries being very susceptible.

The principal stages of the avian plasmodium closely resemble those of the malarial parasites of man. In its earliest stage P. relictum is unpigmented, but soon the trophozoite grows and becomes pigmented, meanwhile displacing the nucleus of the avian red-blood corpuscle, a characteristic feature, distinguishing it from Halteridium. Schizonts are formed, each of which gives rise to about nine merozoites in the circulating blood. Sexual forms or gametocytes also occur in the blood. These develop in Culex fatigans, C. pipiens and C. nemorosus. Oökinetes or vermicules are formed in twelve to fifteen hours in the stomach of the mosquito, and in one to two days well-developed round oöcysts may be seen. In three to four days sporoblasts have formed within the oöcysts and young sporozoites begin to develop. In nine to ten days the oöcysts are mature, being filled with sporozoites. The oöcysts then burst and the sporozoites travel through the thoracic muscles to the salivary glands of the Culicine.

Neumann, experimenting with canaries, found that Stegomyia fasciata could transmit the infection, but less efficiently than species of Culex.

The Cultivation of Malarial Parasites.

The successful cultivation of malarial parasites in vitro was first recorded by C. C. Bass and by Bass and Johns (1912). Since then, J. G. and D. Thomson, and McLellan (1912–13), Ziemann and others have repeated the experiments.

DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN MALARIAL PARASITES.

Character Plasmodium malariæ
(Quartan) Plasmodium vivax
(Benign tertian) Laverania malariæ =
Plasmodium falciparum
(Malignant tertian)

Schizogony Complete in seventy-two hours Complete in forty-eight hours Complete in forty-eight hours or less

Trophozoite Smaller than P. vivax, larger than L. malariæ Young trophozoite large. Young trophozoite small

Pseudopodia not marked or long Long pseudopodia

Movements Rather slow in im­mature forms Active amœboid move­ments Sometimes actively mo­tile

Pigment Coarse granules, peri­pherally arranged, little movement Fine granules, with active move­ment Granules fine and scanty, move­ment oscil­latory

Schizont Smaller than red cor­puscle Larger than red blood cor­puscle Smaller than red corpuscle

Merozoites 6 to 12 forming rosette 15 to 20 regularly arranged 8 to 32 (according to dif­fer­ent authors) arranged ir­reg­ularly

Gametocytes Spherical Spherical Crescentic

Distribution of para­sites in verte­brate host About equal number in peri­pheral and visceral blood Larger numbers in visceral blood Scanty in peri­pheral blood com­pared with the enor­mous numbers in the in­ter­nal organs. The latter part of the cycle (schiz­ogony) may occur in the in­ter­nal organs only

Alterations in erythro­cytes Almost normal Pale and hyper­tro­phied. Corpuscle may be shrunken and dark, or may be colour­less. Maurer’s coarse dots some­times seen

Schüffner’s dots seen in deeply stained specimens

Essentially the method of cultivation, as used by Thomson, is as follows: 10 c.c. of infected blood are drawn from a vein and transferred to a sterile test tube, in which is a thick wire leading to the bottom of the tube. One-tenth of a cubic centimetre of a 50 per cent. aqueous solution of glucose or dextrose is placed in the test tube, preferably before adding the blood. The blood is defibrinated by stirring gently with the wire. When defibrination is complete the wire and the clot are removed, and the glucose-blood is transferred, in portions, to several smaller sterile tubes, each containing a column of blood about one inch in height. The tubes are plugged and capped and then transferred, standing upright, to an incubator kept at a temperature of 37° C. to 41° C. The blood corpuscles soon settle, leaving a column of serum at the top, to the extent of about half an inch in each tube. The leucocytes need not be removed by centrifugalization. J. G. Thomson (1913) and his collaborators did not find it necessary to destroy the complement in the serum, and they found that the malarial parasites developed at all levels in the column of corpuscles, and not merely on the surface layer of the corpuscles as first stated by Bass and Johns.

So far only the asexual generation of the malarial parasites has been grown in vitro. Thomson rarely observed hæmolysis in the cultures. Clumping of the malignant tertian parasites occurred. In cultures of the benign tertian parasite (Plasmodium vivax) clumping was not observed. J. G. and D. Thomson consider that this difference as regards clumping explains why only young forms of malignant tertian are found in peripheral blood, as the clumping tendency of the larger forms causes them to be arrested in the finer capillaries of the internal organs. It also explains the tendency to pernicious symptoms, such as coma, in malignant tertian malaria. Further it was found from cultures that P. falciparum was capable of producing thirty-two spores (merozoites) in maximum segmentation, while P. vivax produced sixteen spores (merozoites) as a rule, though the number might be greater than sixteen. (Quartan parasites produce eight spores or merozoites in schizogony.)

It may also be mentioned here that Babesia (Piroplasma) canis has been successfully cultivated in vitro by Bass’s method. This has been accomplished by Thomson and Fantham, Ziemann, and Toyoda in 1913. J. G. Thomson and Fantham used the simplified Bass technique recorded above, namely, infected blood and glucose, incubating at 37° C. In one of the B. canis cultures, starting with heart blood of a dog containing corpuscles infected with one, two, or, exceptionally, four piroplasmata, Thomson and Fantham succeeded in obtaining a maximum of thirty-two merozoites in a corpuscle. The cultures are infective to dogs and sub-cultures have been obtained.

Family. Piroplasmidæ, França.

The parasites included in this provisional family or group belong to the Hæmosporidia. They are minute organisms, sometimes amœboid, but usually possessing a definite form. They are endoglobular, being contained within mammalian red blood corpuscles, but they produce no pigment. The true Piroplasmata, belonging to the genus Babesia, destroy the host corpuscles, setting free the hæmoglobin, which is excreted by the kidneys of the cow, sheep, horse, dog, etc., acting as host. The disease produced, variously called piroplasmosis or babesiasis, is consequently characterized by a red coloration of the urine known as hæmoglobinuria, or popularly as “red-water.” One of the best known piroplasms is Piroplasma bigeminum or Babesia bovis (probably the latter name is correct), which is the causal agent of “Texas fever” or “red-water” in cattle and is spread by ticks.

Of recent years, researches on the morphology of these blood parasites has led to their separation into various genera and species. However, our knowledge is still very far from complete. The various genera recognized by França (1909), and placed in a provisional family, Piroplasmidæ, may be listed, though further research may lead to emendations:—

(1) Babesia (Starcovici) or Piroplasma (Patton). Pyriform parasites, dividing by a special form of budding or gemmation with chromatin forking, as well as by direct binary fission. Parasitic in oxen, dogs, sheep, horses, etc.

(2) Theileria (Bettencourt, França and Borges). Rod-shaped and oval parasites occurring in cattle and deer. T. parva is the pathogenic agent of African East Coast fever in cattle.

(3) Nuttallia (França). Oval or pear-shaped parasites, with multiplication in the form of a cross. N. equi (fig. 90) of equine “piroplasmosis” (nuttalliosis). N. herpestidis in a mongoose.

(4) Nicollia (Nuttall). Oval or pear-shaped parasites with characteristic nuclear dimorphism, and with quadruple division at first fan-like, then like a four-leaved clover. N. quadrigemina from the gondi.

(5) Smithia (França). Pear-shaped, single forms stretching across the blood corpuscle. Multiplication into four in the form of a cross. S. microti from Microtus arvalis, S. talpæ from the mole.

(6) Rossiella (Nuttall). This belongs to the family Piroplasmidæ of França. It is intracorpuscular and non-pigment forming, occurring singly, in pairs, or occasionally in fours. It is usually round and larger than Babesia. The parasite multiplies by binary fission. R. rossi in the jackal.

The genus Babesia is the best known and most important, and will be considered next.

Genus. Babesia, Starcovici, 1893.

Syn.: Pyrosoma, Smith and Kilborne, 1893; Apiosoma, Wandolleck, 1895; Piroplasma, W. H. Patton, 1895; Amœbosporidium, Bonome, 1895.

The organisms belonging to this genus are pyriform, round or amœboid. The characteristic mode of division is as follows: Just before division the parasite becomes amœboid and irregular in shape, (fig. 91, 1–5) with a compact nucleus. The latter gives off a nuclear bud. This nuclear bud divides into two by forking (fig. 91, 6, 7). The chromatin forks grow towards the surface of the body of the rounded parasite, and then two cytoplasmic buds grow out. The forking nuclear buds, which are Y-shaped, pass into the cytoplasmic outgrowths (fig. 91, 8, 9). The buds gradually increase in size at the expense of the parent form until they become two pear-shaped parasites joined at their pointed ends. The connecting strand shrinks and the two daughter forms separate (fig. 91, 10–14). The pyriform parasites after having exhausted the blood corpuscle escape from it (fig. 91, 15), and seek out fresh host corpuscles, entering by the rounded, blunt end (fig. 91, 1). It is the pyriform phase of the parasite which penetrates red blood corpuscles, not rounded forms, which die if set free. The pyriform parasite, however, becomes rounded (fig. 91, 2, 3), soon after its entry into a fresh host cell. This interesting mode of division by gemmation and chromatin forking has been made diagnostic of the genus Babesia by Nuttall. Rounded forms of Babesia divide by binary fission, and this direct method can also be adopted by the other forms of Babesia.

The distribution of the chromatin in the pear-shaped Babesia, as seen in B. canis and B. bovis, is interesting. The main nuclear body consists of a karyosome surrounded by a clear area. There is also a loose (chromidial) mass of chromatin representing the remains of the chromatin forks seen during the formation of the parasite as a daughter form by gemmation. Occasionally there is a small dot or point, the so-called “blepharoplast” of Schaudinn and Lühe. This minute dot is not a flagellate blepharoplast, for there is no flagellate stage in the life-history of Babesia. These nuclear phenomena have been described by Nuttall and Graham-Smith and Christophers (1907) for B. canis, by Fantham (1907) for B. bovis, and by Thomson and Fantham (1913) from glucose-blood cultures of B. canis.

Babesia are tick borne, as was first shown by Smith and Kilborne (1893). The developmental cycle in the tick is incompletely known. The best accounts are those of Christophers (1907) for B. canis and Koch (1906) for B. bovis, and these accounts are supplementary. The principal stages, so far as known, may be summarized thus:—

(1) The piroplasms taken by the tick in feeding on blood pass into the tick’s stomach. The pyriform parasites, which alone are capable of further development, are set free from the blood corpuscles. In about twelve to eighteen hours they become amœboid, sending out long, stiff, slender, pointed pseudopodia. The nucleus of each parasite divides unequally into two. Similar forms have been obtained in cultures. These stellate forms may be gametes, and according to Koch fuse in pairs.

(2) A spherical stage follows, possibly representing the zygote. This grows, and a uninucleate globular mass results. This form is found in large numbers on the third day, according to the observations of Koch.

(3) A club-shaped organism is next formed. This may represent an oökinete stage. The club-shaped bodies are motile and gregarine-like, and are about four times the size of the blood forms. These club-shaped bodies and subsequent stages were described by Christophers in the development of B. canis in the dog-tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus.

(4) The club-shaped bodies pass from the gut of the tick into the ovary, and so get into the ova. There they become globular, and later are found in the cells of the developing tick-embryo. The parasites are, then, transmitted hereditarily. Similar globular bodies are found in the tissue cells of the body of tick nymphs which have taken up piroplasms. The globular stage was called the “zygote” by Christophers, but it may correspond to the oöcyst of Plasmodia.

(5) The globular body divides into a number of “sporoblasts,” which become scattered through the tissues of the larval or nymphal tick, as the case may be.

(6) The sporoblasts themselves divide into a large number of sporozoites, which are small uninucleate bodies, somewhat resembling blood piroplasms. The sporozoites collect in the salivary glands of the tick. They are inoculated into the vertebrate when the tick next feeds.

The chief species of Babesia and their pathogenic importance may be listed thus:—

(1) Babesia bovis (Babes) produces infectious hæmoglobinuria of cattle in Europe and North Africa. It is transmitted by Ixodes ricinus. A similar parasite also occurs in deer.

(2) Babesia bigemina (Smith and Kilborne) produces Texas fever, tristeza, or red-water in cattle in North and South America, South Africa and Australia. It is transmitted by Boöphilus annulatus in North America, by B. australis in Australia, South America, and the Philippines, and by B. decoloratus in South Africa.

The parasite is from 2 µ to 4 µ long, and from 1·5 µ to 2 µ broad.

Babesia bigemina may be the same parasite as B. bovis.

(3) Babesia divergens (MacFadyean and Stockman) is a small parasite. It is found in cattle suffering from red-water in Norway, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Ireland, Finland, and France, and is transmitted by Ixodes ricinus.

(4) Babesia canis (Piana and Galli-Valerio) gives rise to malignant jaundice or infectious icterus in dogs in Southern Europe, India, and other parts of Asia and North Africa, where it is transmitted by Rhipicephalus sanguineus. In Africa generally, especially South Africa, the disease is transmitted by Hæmaphysalis leachi. Babesia canis varies from 0·7 µ to 5 µ, the size depending partly on the number of parasites within the corpuscle. It averages about 3 µ. It has been cultivated in Bass’ medium (glucose and infected blood), see p. .

In India Piroplasma gibsoni (Patton) infects hunt dogs and jackals. It is annular or oval in shape.

(5) Babesia ovis (Babes) produces “Carceag,” a disease of sheep in Roumania, the Balkan Peninsula, Italy, and Transcaucasia. It varies in size from 1 µ to 3 µ. It is transmitted by Rhipicephalus bursa. The parasite has recently been recorded from Rhodesia.

(6) Babesia caballi (Nuttall and Strickland) causes “biliary fever” in equines. The parasite occurs in Russia, Roumania, and Transcaucasia. It varies in size from 1 µ to 2 µ. It is transmitted by Dermacentor reticulatus.

It should be mentioned that Nuttallia equi also causes “piroplasmosis” in equines, with symptoms of hæmoglobinuria and jaundice in Italy, Sardinia, many parts of Africa, Transcaucasia, India, and Brazil. In Africa it is transmitted by Rhipicephalus evertsi. It has been shown experimentally that a horse recovered from Babesia caballi was susceptible to the inoculation of Nuttallia equi blood.

(7) Babesia pitheci (P. H. Ross) was found in a monkey, Cercopithecus sp., in Uganda. The pear-shaped forms measure 1·5 µ by 2·5 µ.

(8) Babesia muris (Fantham) was found in white rats. The pyriform parasites are 2 µ to 3 µ long and 1 µ to 1·5 µ broad; oval forms are 0·5 to 1·5 µ diameter.

The usual symptoms of babesiasis (piroplasmosis) are high fever, loss of appetite, hæmoglobinuria, icterus, anæmia, paralysis, and death in about a week in acute cases. In chronic cases there is anæmia, and hæmoglobinuria is less marked. When animals recover, there are still some piroplasms left in the blood. “Recovered” or “salted” animals are not susceptible to reinfection, but ticks feeding on them acquire piroplasms, and are a source of danger to freshly imported animals.

Treatment.—Trypan-blue is the best drug, as shown by Nuttall and Hadwen (1909). It should be administered intravenously in 1 to 1·5 per cent. aqueous solution. A dose of 5 to 10 c.c. is curative for dogs, one of 100 to 150 c.c. for horses and cattle. Unfortunately, the tissues are coloured blue by the drug. The “salted” animals, after trypan-blue treatment, still harbour the parasites in their blood for years.

Genus. Theileria, Bettencourt, França and Borges, 1907.

The organisms belonging to this genus are rod-like or bacilliform, and coccoid or round.

The best known of the species of Theileria is T. parva, the pathogenic agent of East Coast fever or Rhodesian fever in cattle in Africa.

Theileria parva, Theiler, 1903.

Syn.: Piroplasma parvum.

In the blood corpuscles of infected cattle minute rod-like and oval parasites are seen. Some are comma shaped and others are clubbed (fig. 92, 1–12). The rod-like forms measure 1 µ to 3 µ in length by 0·5 µ in breadth; the oval forms are 0·7 µ to 1·5 µ in diameter. The intracorpuscular parasites are said by R. Gonder (1910) to be gametocytes, the rod-like forms being thought to be males, the oval forms to be females. Free parasites are practically never seen in the blood. It is known that it is impossible to produce the disease in a healthy animal by blood inoculation, but only by intraperitoneal transplantation of large pieces of infected spleen (Meyer). There may be as many as eight parasites in a corpuscle. The chromatin is usually at one end of the organism. In some parasites the appearance of the chromatin suggests division, but such division, if it takes place, must be very slow, as it has not been actually seen in progress. The red blood corpuscles appear merely to act as vehicles for the parasites (Nuttall, Fantham, and Porter).

In the internal organs, especially the lymphatic glands, spleen and bone-marrow, are found multinucleate bodies known as Koch’s blue bodies (fig. 92, 13–18). These are schizonts, according to Gonder. The actual Koch’s blue bodies are said to be extracellular, but similar multinucleate bodies, schizonts, occur in lymphocytes. The schizonts divide and the merozoites resulting probably invade the red blood corpuscles in the internal organs. Gonder considers that the sporozoites injected by the tick collect in the spleen and lymphatic glands, penetrate the lymphocytes and give rise to the schizonts.

Gonder has studied the cycle of T. parva in the tick. He states that the gametocytes leave the host corpuscles and give rise to gametes, then conjugation occurs producing zygotes. The zygotes are then said to become active to form ookinetes, and to enter the salivary glands of the tick. Multiplication is said to occur therein, producing a swarm of sporozoites. This work needs confirmation.

T. parva is transmitted by Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, R. simus, R. evertsi, R. nitens, and R. capensis. The parasites are not hereditarily transmitted in Rhipicephalus, but when taken by the transmitter at one stage of its development the tick is infective in its next stage (e.g., if the larva becomes infected, then the nymph is infective; if the nymph becomes infected, then the adult is infective).

An animal recovered from Theileria parva is incapable of infecting ticks, but few animals recover from East Coast fever. Animals suffering therefrom do not show hæmoglobinuria.

Theileria mutans, Theiler, 1907·

Syn.: Piroplasma mutans.

This is transmissible experimentally by blood inoculation. It occurs in cattle in South Africa and Madagascar and is apparently non-pathogenic. No Koch’s blue bodies are formed. It is transmitted by ticks.

Theileria annulata (Dschunkowsky and Luhs) occurs in cattle in Transcaucasia.

A Theileria (T. stordii) has been found in a gazelle (França, 1912).

Genus. Anaplasma, Theiler, 1910.

This genus may be mentioned here. The organisms included therein are, according to Theiler, coccus-like, consisting of chromatin, and are devoid of cytoplasm. They occur in the red blood corpuscles of cattle, causing a disease characterized by destruction of red cells, fever and anæmia, but with yellow urine. The disease is tick transmitted. The bodies now called Anaplasma marginale were formerly described as marginal points. They multiply by simple fission. They are said by Theiler to cause gall-sickness in cattle in South Africa. Some authors doubt whether these bodies are organismal.

Genus. Paraplasma, Seidelin, 1911.

Under this generic name Seidelin described certain bodies found by him in cases of yellow fever in 1909. The type species is P. flavigenum, and is claimed by Seidelin to be the causal agent of yellow fever.

Paraplasma flavigenum occurs in the early days of the disease as small chromatin granules with or without a faint trace of cytoplasm. The bodies are usually intracorpuscular. Also, somewhat larger forms, with distinct cytoplasm, are seen in small numbers. During the later days of the disease still larger forms are found, and these occur also in sections of organs (e.g., kidney) made post-mortem. Some of these larger forms are perhaps schizonts. In the second period of the disease possible micro- and macro-gametes may be found, some of which are extracorpuscular. Some small free bodies have been seen. Recently schizogony has been stated to occur in the lungs, and it is said that guinea-pigs can be inoculated with Paraplasma flavigenum, and show yellow pigment in the spleen.

Seidelin places Paraplasma in the Babesiidæ, with resemblances more particularly to Theileria. V. Schilling-Torgau and Agramonte have criticized these findings; the former considers them to be the resultant of certain blood conditions.

P. subflavigenum was found by Seidelin in 1912 in a man suffering from an unclassified fever in Mexico.

Further, it is now known that a Paraplasma occurs naturally in guinea-pigs. More researches are needed on these matters, as some writers (e.g., Wenyon and Low) claim that the bodies are not organismal.

Paraplasma flavigenum.—The Yellow Fever Commission (West Africa) in their third report, dated 1915, have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that the bodies termed Paraplasma flavigenum are of protozoal nature or that they are the causal agents of yellow fever.

Sub-class. NEOSPORIDIA, Schaudinn.

Sporozoa in which growth and spore formation usually go on together.

Order. Myxosporidia, Bütschli.

These parasites, which were discovered by Johannes Müller (1841), live principally in fishes, and occasionally cause destructive epizoötics amongst their hosts. Müller first observed them in the form of whitish-yellow pustules on the skin or on the gills of various fishes. These pustules contained masses of small shell-covered bodies with or without tails (“psorosperms,” see fig. 93). Similar bodies were also found in the air bladders of certain fish. Creplin (1842) demonstrated the resemblance of the cysts (“psorosperm tubes”) harbouring the psorosperms to the “pseudonavicella-cysts” of a gregarine, as described by v. Siebold. Dujardin (1845) considered that there was possibly some connection between the protoplasmic “psorosperm tubes” and the spores they contained, and the developmental stages of monocystid gregarines from the vesiculæ seminales of earth-worms. The relationship of the “fish psorosperms” was placed on a firmer basis by Leydig (1851) and Lieberkühn. The former found numerous forms in marine fish, and he discovered in species which live free in the gall bladder of cartilaginous fishes that the psorosperms originated in a manner similar to the gregarines. Lieberkühn (1854) studied the Myxosporidia in the bladder of the pike (fig. 93, a, b, d), and observed their amœboid movements, as well as the formation of the spores, from each of which a small amœboid body escaped, a discovery that was confirmed by Balbiani. The same author also found that spiral filaments were enclosed in the so-called polar body, i.e., the polar capsule of the psorosperm spores, and that these could be protruded (fig. 93, d, and fig. 95).

The term Myxosporidia, which at the present day is universally applied to the “psorosperm tubes,” was introduced by Bütschli in 1881, who studied not only the structure and development of the spores, but also the protoplasmic body of the parasites (fig. 96), and confirmed the occurrence of numerous nuclei. Many authors have made important additions to our knowledge of the Myxosporidia: Perugia, Thélohan, Mingazzini, L. Pfeiffer, L. Cohn, Doflein, Mercier, Schröder and Auerbach; while the presence of this parasite outside the class of fishes has become known through Lutz, Laveran, and others. The species causing disease in fishes have been described by Ludwig, Railliet, Weltner, L. Pfeiffer, Zschokke, Hofer, Doflein, Gurley, Plehn, Schuberg, Fantham and Porter. With regard to classification the works of Thélohan (1895) and Gurley (1894) may be mentioned.

The Myxosporidia live either free on the epithelial surface of hollow organs (gall or urinary bladder, renal tubules, but never in the intestine), or are enclosed in the tissues of their host. The gills and muscular system are their favourite habitat, but other tissues or organs may be attacked. Species of Myxosporidia are also known from Amphibia, Reptilia, and a few invertebrates.

The free forms, which are often amœboid (fig. 96), move by the aid of variously shaped pseudopodia, have a constant form, or may exhibit contractions of the body. The tissue parasites often reach a considerable size, so that the integument of the host forms protuberances over them. They are of a roundish or irregular shape. Frequently they are enveloped in a connective tissue covering formed by the host.

The protoplasmic body in the trophic phase (fig. 96) shows a distinct ectoplasm which is finely granular or sometimes striated, and an endoplasm which is coarsely granular and contains many nuclei as well as cell inclusions, such as crystals, pigment grains and fat globules. The nuclei originate by division from the primitive nucleus of the amœboid germ that issues from the spore. This amœbula may or may not live intra-cellularly during the early stages of its existence.

The multinucleate trophozoite of a Myxosporidian forms spores in its endoplasm practically throughout its whole period of growth (fig. 96). Vegetative reproduction by a process of external budding or plasmotomy may also occur, as in Myxidium lieberkühni from the urinary bladder of the pike.

The myxosporidian trophozoite may produce two spores within itself, when it is placed in the sub-order Disporea, or it may produce numerous spores, which is characteristic of the sub-order, Polysporea. The phenomenon of spore formation is not simple (fig. 97), and the spore itself is surrounded by a bivalved shell or sporocyst and contains polar capsules in addition to the amœboid germ (fig. 97, G, H). The valves of the sporocyst and the polar capsules are really differentiated nucleate cells, so that each spore is an aggregate of cells rather than one cell, though only a single amœbula issues from a spore. The accounts of spore formation vary somewhat according to the different workers.

Spore formation is usually very complicated and there are differences of opinion as to the interpretation of various stages, particularly as to whether conjugation occurs therein. The process is initiated by the concentration of cytoplasm around one of the nuclei of the endoplasm, so that a small spherical mass or initial corpuscle is produced, the pansporoblast (Gurley) or primitive sphere (Thélohan). Some authors state that a pansporoblast really results from a conjugation of two initial corpuscles (fig. 97, A-D). Nuclear multiplication occurs within the pansporoblast (fig. 97, E), and sooner or later two multinucleate sporoblasts are formed within it (fig. 97, F). Each sporoblast gives rise to a single spore, which consists of a sporocyst or envelope composed of two valves each secreted by a cell, two polar capsules each secreted by a cell, and the sporoplasm or amœbula which becomes binucleate (fig. 97, G). During the process of spore formation (fig. 97) various vegetative and reduction nuclei may be produced, in addition to those which are essentially involved in spore formation, and the sporocyst cells may be developed early.

Each spore contains two (figs. 94, 95) or more polar capsules which are clearly visible in the fresh condition. Each polar capsule is a hollow, more or less pear-shaped body, secreted by a cell and having a well defined contour. Within it, a long, delicate, elastic filament, the polar filament, is formed, and lies spirally coiled in the polar capsule until just before the emergence of the amœbula from the spore (fig. 95). The polar filament is ejected, probably under the influence of the digestive juice, when the spore reaches a new host, and serves to anchor the spore to the tissue with which it is in contact, and thus allow of the emergence of the amœbula in a situation suitable for its development. The polar capsule with its contained polar filament has been compared with the stinging cells or nematocysts of the Cœlentera, but it has a totally different function.

The spores fulfil the purpose of effecting transmission to other hosts. Infection occurs by the ingestion of the parasites per os after their escape by some means from their host. Thélohan and others have demonstrated that the valves of the spores soon open under the influence of the digestive juices, thus allowing the young myxosporidia to escape. Their further history is unknown; but it may be surmised that they either travel direct to the organs usually affected (gall bladder, urinary bladder), or are distributed in the body by means of the circulatory or lymphatic systems.

The Myxosporidia that invade tissues are often deadly to their hosts. They may be present in a state of “diffuse infiltration” when practically every organ of the body may be infected, as in barbel disease (due to Myxobolus pfeifferi). On the other hand, the parasites may be concentrated at one spot, when cysts, either large or small, are produced. Such cysts occur on the gills of many fishes. A few additional important pathogenic forms are Myxobolus cyprini, the excitant of “pockenkrankheit” of carp, and Lentospora cerebralis, parasitic in the skeleton of Salmonidæ and Gadidæ. The skeletons of the tail, fins and skull particularly are seats of infection, and from the skull the Lentospora can spread to the semicircular canals, resulting in loss of power to maintain its balance on the part of the fish. On this account the malady is termed “drehkrankheit.” Young fish are more particularly infected. Myxobolus neurobius infects the spinal cord and nerves of trout.

Myxosporidia are divided into two sub-orders—Disporea and Polysporea—according to whether they form only two or several spores during their growth. The former include two genera limited to fishes, which are easily distinguishable by the shape of the spores: Leptotheca, Thél., with a rounded spore, and Ceratomyxa, Thél., with a very elongate spore. The larger number of genera belong to the Polysporea, which are divided into three families:

(1) Amœboid germ with a vacuole the contents of which do not stain with iodine. (a) With two polar capsules.—Myxidiidæ.

(b) With four polar capsules.—Chloromyxidæ.

(2) Amœboid germ with a vacuole stainable with iodine. Spores with two polar capsules.—​Myxobolidæ.

For further subdivisions the differences in the spores are principally utilized.

Order. Microsporidia, Balbiani.

These are the organisms discovered in the stickleback by Gluge in 1834, and in Coccus hesperidum by Leydig in 1853. They have since been found in numerous other arthropods, especially insects. They acquired particular importance when it was discovered that they were the cause of the “pébrine” disease (“gattina” of the Italians) which caused so much destruction amongst silkworms (Bombyx mori). Pasteur (1867–70) and especially Balbiani (1866) participated in the researches on Nosema bombycis, and it was the latter who classed the “pébrine bodies” or “psorospermia of the arthropoda” amongst the Sporozoa as Microsporidia (1882). The complete life cycle of N. bombycis was described in 1909 by Stempell. The Microsporidia are not confined to insects and arachnoids, they are now known to occur also in crustacea, worms, bryozoa, fishes, amphibians and reptiles. Certain tumours in fishes, similar to those formed by many Myxosporidia, are produced by Microsporidia. Fantham and Porter found that Nosema apis was pathogenic to bees and other insects, and was the causal agent of the so-called “Isle of Wight” disease in bees in Great Britain.

The Microsporidia, as their name implies, form minute spores which usually are oval or pear-shaped. Each spore contains a single polar capsule which is not easily visible in the fresh state (fig. 98, f) and a single amœboid germ issues from the spore (fig. 99, b).

The life cycle of Nosema apis, parasitic in bees, may be taken as an example of that of a microsporidian. The infection of the host is initiated by the ingestion of spores of N. apis in food or drink contaminated with the excrement of other infected bees. Under the influence of the digestive juice of the bee the spore-coat (sporocyst) softens, the polar filament is ejected and anchors the spore to the gut epithelium, and the minute amœbula contained in the spore emerges. The amœbula is capable of active amœboid movements (fig. 98, b) and so is termed the planont or wandering form (fig. 98, a). After a short time each planont penetrates between or into the cells of the epithelium of the gut, a few only passing through into the body cavity. Within the cells the amœbulæ become more or less rounded, lose their power of movement, and after a period of growth of the trophozoite (fig. 98, c) commence to divide actively, these dividing forms being known as meronts (fig. 98, d). Various forms of fission occur, and during this phase, termed merogony, the numbers of the parasite within the host are greatly increased, with concomitant destruction of the epithelium (fig. 98, e). After a time sporogony commences. The full-grown meront becomes successively the pansporoblast and sporoblast. Nuclear multiplication and differentiation ensue and five nuclei are ultimately produced. At the same time a sporocyst is secreted, and two vacuoles are produced within. One is the polar capsule, and within it the polar filament is differentiated; the other forms the posterior vacuole (fig. 98, g). Between the two vacuoles the body cytoplasm or sporoplasm forms a girdle-like mass. Of the nuclei, one regulates the polar capsule, two control the secretion of the sporocyst, and two remain in the sporoplasm. The polar capsule and polar filament are not usually visible in the fresh condition, but can be demonstrated by the use of various chemical reagents (fig. 100). The sporoplasm ultimately becomes the amœbula (fig. 98, g) which issues from the spore after the ejection of the polar filament.

A trophozoite (meront) of N. apis becomes a single pansporoblast which gives rise to one sporoblast producing one spore, and this procedure is characteristic of the genus Nosema. In other genera the trophozoite may form more than one pansporoblast and each pansporoblast may form a variable number of spores in different cases. Various attempts at classification have been based on these characteristics. It must suffice here to note that in the cases where the trophozoite becomes one pansporoblast, the latter can produce four spores in the genus Gurleya, eight spores in Thélohania and many spores in Pleistophora. In other cases, where the trophozoites give rise to many pansporoblasts, each of the latter may form many spores, as in the genus Glugea.

A few pathogenic microsporidian parasites other than N. apis may be mentioned. N. bombycis, causing pébrine in silkworms, may infect any or all the tissues of the host (fig. 99). The larvæ of the host, i.e., the “silkworms,” may become infected by eating food contaminated with spore-containing excrement of already infected silkworms. In cases of heavy infection the silkworm dies, but should the infection be less intense the larva becomes a pupa in which the parasite persists, so that the moth emerges from the cocoon already infected. Not only is the moth parasitized itself, but the Nosema reaches the generative organs of both sexes and penetrates the ovaries of the female, with the result that the ova are deposited infected. Such infected eggs are capable of developing, so that infection may be transmitted hereditarily as well as by the contaminative method. Infected eggs can be recognized by microscopic examination, as Pasteur showed, and thus preventive measures may be adopted.

A microsporidian parasite is known to occur on the roots of the spinal and cranial nerves of Lophius piscatorius, the angler fish. This parasite is variously referred to the genera Nosema and Glugea.

Thélohania contejeani, parasitic in the muscles of crayfish, is believed by some to be the causal agent of recent epizoötics among them, though others believe the disease to be really due to a bacillus. It may be that the one organism aids in the entry of the other into the host.

Order. Actinomyxidia, Stolč.

A brief mention may be made of the Actinomyxidia (fig. 101), which were first described by Stolč in 1899 as parasites of Oligochætes. They have also been investigated by Mrazek, and a detailed study of certain species was made by Caullery and Mesnil (1905). The trophozoite is small and amœboid. The spores are large, and exhibit tri-radiate symmetry. Spore formation is complicated and sexual processes occur therein. Many amœbulæ are set free from each spore.

Order. Sarcosporidia, Balbiani.

The first member of this group was discovered by Miescher in 1843. This author found white filaments running parallel with the direction of the fibres in the voluntary muscles of mice. They were visible to the naked eye, and proved to be cylindrical tubes tapering at each end. They were as long as the muscular fibres, were enveloped in a membrane, and contained innumerable elongate or kidney-shaped bodies and a smaller number of little spherical forms. Th. v. Hessling confirmed (1853) the occurrence of these “Miescher’s tubes” within the muscular fibres, this author having discovered the same structures in the heart muscles of deer, cattle, and sheep. Both investigators considered them to be pathological transformations of the muscles. v. Siebold, from his own experiences, regarded them as fungus-like entophytes.

Rainey (1858) discovered similar structures in the muscular system of pigs, and considered them to be early stages of Cysticercus cellulosæ, which error Leuckart rectified, simultaneously emphasizing their relationship with Myxosporidia. Both these authors found them in the muscular fibres, and both observed that they possessed a thick striated membrane. Manz (1867) published the results of more minute investigations on the structure and contents of the cylinders. This observer also recognized the disease in rabbits and attempted to cultivate the parasites. He also tried to induce experimental infection in guinea-pigs, rats, and mice, but the result was negative.

However, domestic and wild mammals are not the only hosts of Sarcosporidia; these parasites are also harboured by birds. Thus, according to Kühn, they are found in the domestic fowl; according to Rivolta in Turdus, Corvus, and other birds; according to Stiles in North American birds; while Fantham found Sarcosporidia in the African mouse-bird, Colius. Reptiles also are parasitized occasionally. Bertram found them in the gecko, Lühe in the wall-lizard. It was found also that the Sarcosporidia could develop not only in the muscles but also in the connective tissue. This led to the foundation of a new, but provisional, classification by Blanchard, using the generic name Miescheria for the parasites in the muscles and Balbiania for those in the connective tissue. Finally, Sarcosporidia have also been observed in man.

The relation of these parasites to certain diseases of domestic animals has been studied by veterinary surgeons. Sarcosporidia may cause fatal epizoötics among sheep.

There is still a wide field open for research in regard to the structure and development of these parasites, and the manner in which the hosts become infected.

The Sarcosporidia usually appear as elongate, cylindrical, or fusiform bodies, rounded at both extremities and of various lengths and breadths (fig. 102). In some species they may be from 16 mm. to 50 mm. long, as in the sheep and roebuck. These bodies are the so-called sarcocysts or Miescher’s tubes. They lie in transversely striated muscular fibres which they distend more or less. The forms found in the connective tissue are apparently parasites which originally inhabited the muscular fibres, and only on disintegration of the fibres reached the connective tissue, where they grow to large oval or globular bodies (fig. ). The mammalian muscles usually infected are those of the œsophagus, larynx, diaphragm, body-wall, and the psoas muscles. The skeletal muscles may be affected in acute cases, as well as those of the tongue and eye. The heart muscles are sometimes parasitized.

In fresh material cut into thin slices the parasites are frequently recognizable, even with the naked eye, because of their yellowish-white colour. Under the microscope they appear to be coarsely granular (fig. 103). Beginners may find some difficulty in distinguishing them from other foreign bodies, such as dead and calcified encapsuled Trichinæ, or from Cysticerci that have died and become calcified in the early stages, more particularly as the Sarcosporidia also occasionally may become calcified.

The Sarcosporidia are always enveloped in a membrane, which is probably formed at an early stage. In a few cases it remains thin and simple, in other cases a radially striated ectoplasmic layer is present (figs. 104, 108), which has been variously described. From the inner integument, which may be homogeneous or fibrous, thick or thin, membranes or trabeculæ pass into the interior of the body, forming anastomosing partitions, and so producing a system of chambers of various sizes that do not communicate with one another (figs. 104, 108). These chambers are occupied by sickle- or bean-shaped bodies (spores or sporozoites), or various developmental stages of them. The oldest spores are found in the centre of the Miescher’s tubes or trophozoites. If they are not liberated they die there, so that the central chambers of the tube are empty and hollow.

In the youngest Sarcosporidia (40 µ in length) from the muscles of the sheep there occur, according to Bertram, small roundish or oval cells (4 µ to 5 µ), the nuclei of which are half their size, and are embedded in a granular protoplasmic mass. In somewhat larger, and therefore older, cylinders, the investing membrane of which already shows both layers, the cells have become larger (to 7 µ) and are more sharply outlined from each other (fig. 106). These uninucleate cells may be considered as pansporoblasts. In each pansporoblast division of the nucleus occurs (fig. 107), and meanwhile the pansporoblasts become isolated within the chambers, the dividing partitions of which originate from the granular protoplasm which is present between the pansporoblasts. The numerous uninucleate daughter forms produced within the chambers become spores direct (fig. 108).

The process commences in the centre of the cylinders or sarcocysts, and then progresses towards the extremities, the parasites meanwhile increasing in size, and new pansporoblasts being continually formed at the extremities (fig. 107).

The spores (sometimes called Rainey’s corpuscles), vary in shape according to the species, but are also of different form individually. They are mostly kidney-, bean- or sickle-shaped (fig. 109), and of small size, sometimes reaching 14 µ by 3 µ to 5 µ. They are apparently surrounded by a thin membrane, and at one extremity (according to the discovery of L. Pfeiffer, confirmed by van Eecke, Laveran and Mesnil) contain an obliquely striated body (fig. 109) often homologized with the polar capsule, while the greater part of the spore is taken up by the nucleate sporozoite. Several authors state that they have also observed filamentous appendages (polar filaments) at one end of the spores, and have seen two kinds of spores in the same Sarcosporidium. Spores of various species of Sarcosporidia may contain metachromatic granules, often centrally placed (fig. 109). These granules may be metabolic or possibly may contain toxin (see below).

The gymnospores of Sarcocystis muris, from the mouse, show active boring movements when kept in saline solution warmed to 35° or 37° C. S. muris is very deadly to its host. From their structure the spores do not appear to have great powers of resistance to external conditions. They measure 12 µ by 3 µ to 4 µ or less.

Laveran and Mesnil (1899) isolated a toxin from S. tenella of the sheep and called it sarcocystin. This substance is especially pathogenic to experimental rabbits.

The duration of life of the Sarcosporidia is a comparatively long one. The affected muscular fibres may remain intact and capable of performing their functions for a long time, but at last they perish, if the host lives long enough. Thus the Sarcosporidia of the muscles are then enveloped only by sarcolemma, and finally, when this likewise disappears, they fall into the intra-muscular connective tissue. In many cases the Sarcosporidia die off within their hosts, this, according to Bertram, being brought about by a disintegration of the spores in the central chambers. In other cases the leucocytes play a part in the destruction of the Sarcosporidia, and sometimes it happens that lime salts are deposited in and around the vacant cylinders.

In some places pigs, sheep, mice and rats are infected with sarcosporidiosis to a remarkable extent, in certain cases almost reaching 100 per cent. Young animals also are infected, and perhaps infection only takes place during youth.

Although the natural mode of transmission of the Sarcosporidia remains to be determined, yet various experimental researches on the problem are of interest and importance. Theobald Smith (1901) found that mice could be experimentally infected with S. muris by feeding them with the flesh of other infected mice. The incubation period was a long one, namely forty to fifty days. Thus, on the forty-fifth day after feeding young Sarcosporidia were found, and seventy days after feeding spore formation began. Ripe spores were found two and a half to three months after the commencement of these experiments. This mode of infection—a cannibalistic one—hardly seems likely to be the natural method for the infection of sheep and ruminants generally. Smith’s researches have been confirmed. Nègre (1910) found that the fæces of mice fed on infected muscular tissue were infective to other mice when ingested by them. Negri infected guinea-pigs with S. muris by feeding them on infected mouse flesh, and found that the parasite in guinea-pigs showed different characters from those exhibited by it in mice. Darling also succeeded in infecting guinea-pigs with S. muris, and Erdmann infected mice with S. tenella (from the sheep).

According to Erdmann (1910) the Sarcosporidian spore germinates in the intestine of the host, which has recently ingested infected material. The spore liberates its contained toxin—sarcocystin—which acts upon the adjacent intestinal epithelium, whereby the latter is shed, and an amœbula creeps out of the spore. The amœbula is able to penetrate the denuded area and get directly into the lymph-spaces of the submucous coat of the intestine. The first period of development, lasting some twenty-eight to thirty days, is said to be passed in the lymph-spaces of the intestine. Later the amœbula reaches a muscle fibre. Writing in May, 1914, Erdmann records the appearance of small amœboid and schizogony forms six days after infection of the host. Crawley (1913) controverts some of these statements and considers that the Sarcosporidian spore, still sickle-shaped, bores its way into the epithelial cells of the intestine and comes to rest there. The spore then becomes round or elliptical, and peripheral masses of chromatin appear within it, suggesting schizogony. This happens about twelve hours after feeding, and in twenty-four hours the spores appear to have left the intestine. More recently (May, 1914), Crawley considers that there is sexual differentiation among the Sarcosporidian spores, a few hours after their ingestion by the host.

Interesting discussions have occurred as to the site of the toxic sarcocystin within the spore. Metachromatic granules occur in the middle of the Sarcosporidian spore (fig. ), and the toxin may be contained in these grains, as they disappear, according to Erdmann, before the amœbula penetrates the denuded intestinal wall. However, a polar capsule, containing a polar filament, may be present at one end of a Sarcosporidian spore. Laveran and Mesnil described a striated area at the more pointed end of the spore of S. tenella, which area they consider to represent a polar capsule. Fantham (1913) found a vacuole-like, polar capsule area in the spores of S. colii from the African mouse-bird. The sarcocystin may be contained in the polar capsule. The nucleus of the spore is generally at the opposite, blunter end.

Again, various authors have stated that Sarcosporidian spores may occur in the blood of the host at times. If so, then an intermediate host may be concerned in their transmission. Perrin suggested that Sarcosporidia might be spread by blow-flies and flesh-flies.

The classification of the Sarcosporidia as proposed by R. Blanchard, which was based on their various habitats, can no longer hold, because the same species may occur in the muscles as well as in the connective tissue. For the present, the few species that are known may be placed in one genus, Sarcocystis, Ray Lankester, 1882.

The following species of Sarcocystis are of interest:—
S. miescheriana, Kühn, 1865, in the pig.
S. bertrami, Doflein, 1901, in the horse.
S. tenella, Railliet, 1886, in sheep. S. tenella bubali in buffaloes in Ceylon and Egypt.
S. blanchardi, Doflein, 1901, in cattle.
S. muris, Blanchard, 1885, in the mouse, to which it is lethal.
S. hueti, Blanchard, 1885, in the seal.
S. colii, Fantham, 1913, in the African mouse-bird, Colius erythromelon.

Also various Sarcosporidia from antelopes, monkeys, opossum, birds, the gecko and wall-lizard are known.

The spores of S. muris, S. bertrami, S. tenella, and S. colii can multiply by longitudinal fission.

Sarcosporidia observed in Man.

(1) Lindemann found on the valves and in the myocardium of a person who had died of dropsy certain brownish masses, 3 mm. in length and 1·5 mm. in breadth which he regarded as gregarines. If these were actually independent animal organisms it may be suggested that they were Sarcosporidia. Rivolta (1878) named the species S. lindemanni.

(2) Rosenberg found a cyst 5 mm. in length and 2 mm. in breadth in a papillary muscle of the mitral valve of a woman, aged 40, who had died from pleuritis and endocarditis. The cyst contained no scolex nor hooklets of tænia. Numerous small refracting bodies, round, oval or kidney-shaped, were found in a daughter cyst, as well as sickle-shaped bodies. The description hardly appears to indicate Sarcosporidia.

(3) Kartulis observed Miescher’s cylinders of various sizes in the liver (?) and in the muscular system, of a Sudanese who had succumbed to multiple abscesses of the liver and abdominal muscles. This may be considered as the first actual case of the occurrence of Sarcosporidia in man. Koch in 1887 described a case in Egypt.

(4) The case reported by Baraban and St. Remy was at once demonstrated as certain. It related to a man who had been executed, and in the laryngeal muscles of whom Sarcosporidia were found; the length of the parasites varied between 150 µ and 1,600 µ, their breadth between 77 µ and 168 µ. The affected muscular fibres were distended to four times their normal thickness. This species was described by Blanchard as “Miescheria” muris, but according to Vuillemin, it was more probably Sarcocystis tenella of the sheep.

(5) Vuillemin has also described a case of Sarcosporidia found in the muscles of a man who died from tubercle at Nancy. The author considered that the parasite corresponded to S. tenella.

(6) Darling (1909) found Sarcosporidia in the biceps of a negro from Barbados.

The Myxosporidia, Microsporidia, Actinomyxidia and possibly the Sarcosporidia may be included within the section Cnidosporidia (Doflein), since they possess spores containing polar capsules.

Order. Haplosporidia, Caullery and Mesnil.

The Haplosporidia are a group of organisms having both a simple structure and life-history. The simplicity may represent a primitive condition or may be due to degradation resultant on parasitism, and thus it is possible that the group is not a homogeneous one. The order Haplosporidia was created by Caullery and Mesnil in 1899, and includes parasites of rotifers, annelids (fig. 110), crustacea, fish, prochordates and man. They may be present in the body cavity or alimentary tract, and can also occur in the septum nasi of man, in the nervous system of Cephalodiscus, and in tumours of fish.

As the name implies, the spores of the Haplosporidia are simple, without polar capsules, and are uninucleate. In some genera, e.g., Haplosporidium, Urosporidium (fig. 111) there is a spore-coat or sporocyst which may be elongate or spiny. The developmental cycle of a Haplosporidian, such as Haplosporidium or Bertramia, begins with a small, uninucleate cell, often rounded, possessing a cell membrane that may be prolonged into processes. Growth takes place, coupled with an increase in the number of nuclei, so that a multinucleate trophozoite is produced. Later, this multinucleate trophozoite becomes segmented into a number of ovoid or spherical pansporoblasts, which give rise to few (one to four) spores. Such a spore, when set free, begins the life cycle over again.

More recently (1905–1907) two important organisms have been described and included in this group, namely, Neurosporidium cephalodisci (Ridewood and Fantham) from the nervous system of the prochordate, Cephalodiscus nigrescens, and Rhinosporidium kinealyi (or seeberi) from the septum nasi of man. In the case of Rhinosporidium and Neurosporidium, after the uninucleate spore has grown into a multinucleate trophozoite, the latter segments into uninucleate pansporoblasts, as in the preceding cases. A difference then occurs, for each pansporoblast enlarges, its nucleus divides and a “spore-morula” is formed. Thus a multinucleate pansporoblast or spore-morula, divided into many uninucleate sporoblasts (spore mother cells) is produced, and each sporoblast without further change becomes a uninucleate spore.

The Haplosporidia have therefore been divided by Ridewood and Fantham (1907) into two sections:—

(1) The Polysporulea, wherein the pansporoblast gives rise to a number of spores (nine or more), e.g., Rhinosporidium, Neurosporidium.

(2) The Oligosporulea, wherein the pansporoblasts give rise each to a few (four) spores or to only a single spore, e.g., Haplosporidium, Bertramia, Cœlosporidium, Ichthyosporidium.

Rhinosporidium kinealyi, Minchin and Fantham, 1905.

Rhinosporidium kinealyi, parasitic in man, must now be considered in greater detail. This organism was found in nasal polypus in India, and has since been recorded from the ear as small nodules in the external auditory meatus. The Indian cases came from the neighbourhoods of Calcutta and Madras, and the parasite has been seen in Ceylon. Similar structures have since been described from the United States and South America.

The Rhinosporidium polypus is said not to be particularly painful, though nasal forms must interfere with breathing to some extent. The first nasal polyp reported from India formed a vascular pedunculated growth on the septum nasi and was about the size of a large pea or raspberry. It was compared with a raspberry, being red in colour with a number of small whitish dots upon its surface. When the tumour was cut, a number of similar whitish dots were seen within. These were the cysts of Rhinosporidium. According to Minchin and Fantham (1905), they vary considerably in size and measure up to 200 µ or 250 µ in diameter. Each possesses a cyst wall which varies in thickness in different cysts. Its outer wall is always firm and distinct, the inner limit being less definite at times. Each large cyst is filled with numbers of spherical or oval bodies, showing every gradation between small ones at the periphery and large ones at the centre (fig. 112). Roughly, three zones of parasites can be distinguished in a large cyst, a peripheral set consisting of the youngest parasites, an intermediate group and a central, oldest zone. A large cyst may possess a pore for the egress of its contents. Some of the cysts show polar distribution of the zones.

The youngest forms of Rhinosporidium are difficult to detect. They are small, granular masses, round, ovoid or irregular and at times even amœboid in appearance. These are young trophozoites. They increase in size, but encystment occurs early, the outer layer becoming firm so that the organisms have a definite contour. Each is soon multinucleate and the cytoplasm segments around the nuclei. The cyst thus becomes full of uninucleate pansporoblasts or sporonts, with a peripheral layer of undifferentiated protoplasm. The pansporoblasts grow in size. In the larger cysts the formation of pansporoblasts progresses at the expense of the peripheral layer of protoplasm, which, however, continues to grow, so that the cyst as a whole increases in size. The pansporoblasts at first are uninucleate (fig. 112, a), and then undergo nuclear multiplication. This is well seen in the intermediate zone of parasites, where the pansporoblasts show first one, then two, then four or more spores (fig. 112, b), while in the oldest centrally placed pansporoblasts, about a dozen or sixteen closely packed spores (fig. 112, c), can be seen. The spore is small and rounded, and its nucleus is clear and distinct. The fully formed pansporoblast or spore morula becomes surrounded by a membrane.

Certain of the cysts have been found in a ruptured condition, whereby the spores have been liberated into the surrounding tissue. It is almost certain that the spores serve for the auto-infection of the host, for though the tumours of Rhinosporidium seemed to have been removed entirely, it has been found that they recur, some minute fragment of the parasite having probably been left behind. The method whereby the parasite reaches new hosts has not yet been determined, and it would be of interest if its life-history could be more fully investigated.

The Asiatic specimens of R. kinealyi were first described in detail by Minchin and Fantham (1905) from material briefly reported to the Laryngological Society of London in 1903, by O’Kinealy. Material obtained by Dr. Nair, of Madras, was described by Beattie in 1906. This material came from Cochin. Castellani and Chalmers have found similar polypi in Ceylon.

Wright has described the parasite from Memphis, Tennessee. Seeber in 1896 described nasal polypi in Buenos Ayres, and in 1900 Wernicke named the parasite therein Coccidium seeberi. Seeber’s parasite is a Rhinosporidium, R. seeberi, and may ultimately be found to be the same as R. kinealyi. Ingram reports Rhinosporidium cysts, with pores in the cyst walls, in conjunctival polypus and in papilloma of the penis in India. Zschokke has reported the presence of Rhinosporidium in horses in South Africa.