Successful canine infection with cultures of Leishmania infantum (Ch. Nicolle)

Abstract

By the collective term Leishmaniasis we may designate three apparently distinct diseases (1) Kala-azar or tropical splenomegaly of India and the East; (2) Oriental sore, otherwise known as Delhi, Biskra, Aleppo, etc., boil; and (3) infantile splenic anemia. These are characterized by the presence of peculiar intracellular parasites commonly known as the Leishman-Donovan bodies. The work of Rogers and others has shown that the parasite of Kala-azar develops in a citrate solution, into flagellate or trypanosome-like organisms, but attempts at cultivation on blood agar have given negative results. The recent investigations of Ch. Nicolle on the parasites of Oriental sore and of infantile splenic anemia establish the important fact that the Leishman bodies found in these two diseases can be cultivated on blood agar with the same ease as in the case of many trypanosomes. Nicolle has further shown that the infantile splenic anemia can be transmitted to dogs and monkeys by injection of suspensions of the diseased tissues, but attempts to produce an infection by inoculation of the cultures of the flagellate failed.

Having received through the courtesy of M. Mesnil, of the Pasteur Institute, transplants of the eighth generation of Nicolle's flagellate, it was decided, first of all, to test in a severe way the question as to the possibility of inducing an experimental infection in animals by means of such cultures. Accordingly a dog was given, in the interval from April 13 to Sept. 21, fifteen intraperitoneal injections of fresh vigorous cultures. The organism was grown on blood-agar at zoo, and for each inoculation the growth from a large number of tubes (8-40) was taken up in citrate solution and injected. A total of 270 cultures were thus utilized in the course of five months. The dog apparently showed no effect, other than occasional leucocytosis, and microscopic examination of the peripheral blood gave negative results.