Peripheral Lesions Produced by L. Donovani and Allied Leishmaniae.

Abstract

Gonder, 1 Laveran, 2 , 3 and Sergent 4 have reported peculiar lesions of the extremities, tail, scrotum, nose and ears in white mice inoculated intraperitoneally with recently isolated cultures of L. tropica. Sergent 4 was unable to produce such lesions with cultures beyond the 50th cultural passage.

Bramachari 5 and others in Calcutta have reported cases of Kala Azar treated with antimony and apparently cured, in whom there developed later, nodules in the skin of the face, upper extremities and trunk, in which leishmaniae were found and from which they were cultivated. The spleen, liver and blood stream in these cases were free from leishmaniae. Bramachari has called this complex “dermal leishmanoid”. Acton and Knowles 6 reported a patient, diagnosed clinically as xanthoma tuberosum multiplex. A leishmania was cultivated from the lesions.

The present authors worked, in part, with cultures obtained from Drs. Nicolle and Anderson of Tunis, who have had them under continuous artificial cultivation for varying periods up to nearly 15 years. These cultures comprised L. donovani (L. infantum), strains KA and Sh, L. canis (“kala azar canin”) strains x and X, and L. tarentolae (“leptomonas de gecko”) from the gecko. All of these strains originally produced visceral lesions only. When these cultures were inoculated intraperitoneally into Chinese striped hamsters (Cricetulus griseus), the infections were visceral at first, with enlarged spleen and liver and with leishmania fairly abundant in the smears from the spleen, liver, bone marrow and heart blood.