Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/70

46 DEMONSTRATION OF ORIENTAL SORE disease had passed the active stage, and was in an involuted or morbid condition. That, no doubt, too, was the explanation of the results which had recently been published by James. Deputed by the Indian Government to investigate the connection between the parasite discovered by Wright and the disease, Major James found, in Delhi, that only in a certain proportion of cases could he find in the scrapings of sores the characteristic organism. In many cases of undoubted Oriental sore, it was absent. As regarded the patient that evening, that too was the condition; whereas at first there were swarms of parasites crowding the cells and tissues, now they were extremely rare and difficult to find, and there could be little doubt but that these organisms were in the involution stage. But this mysterious malady had a still more interesting and note-worthy feature than all these. That was the relationship of Oriental sore to the deadly disease kala-azar. Per se, Oriental sore did not endanger life; though protracted, the tendency was to cure, and we could inoculate it without apprehension of serious evil. Kala-azar, on the contrary, never healed; it was most invariably fatal; and it would be, therefore, entirely unjustifiable to inoculate kala-azar into any human being. Yet the parasite of Oriental sore and the parasite of kala-azar were, so far as could be seen with the microscope, identical. He said morphologically, but perhaps not biologically, identical. And this fact gave rise to many questions and speculations. Were they of the same species In their relations there was a unique opportunity of investigation, and perhaps of discovery. Of the connection between the Leishman-Donovan body and Oriental sore on the one hand, and kala-azar on the other, there could be little doubt; but it was only by successful inoculation experiments that the information about kala-azar, of which they stood so much in need, could be obtained. Assuming that the parasites were absolutely