Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/100



a recent visit to Uganda, for the purpose of making a reference collection of the helminthic parasites of that country for the Museum of the London School of Tropical Medicine, I had the opportunity of investigating in the Research Laboratory at Entebbe a curious "ascarid"-like nematode that ha,d been obtained at a postmortem of a native who had died, in the hospital, of sleeping sickness. From my examination of the material, which had been very kindly placed at my disposal by Dr. Gray of the Royal Society Sleeping Sickness Commission, I was able to determine that the specimens belonged to the genus Physaloptera, a genus that had hitherto been found but once in man. It was not possible at the time to say, however, whether the specimens represented a new species or belonged to that founded by v. Linstow in 1902 for those discovered in Southern Russia, and named by him Physaloptera caucasica. Since my return to London I have been able to compare the details of organisation of the African form with those given by v. Linstow for P. caucasica, and with the other forms that appear in literature, and to .satisfy myself that the form met with in Central Africa presents several notable distinguishing characteristics.

The genus Physaloptera has representatives in the four