Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/73

Rh peculiarity of Oriental sore was that it was frequently restricted to towns, country districts being free. He thought flies were scientifically, as well as popularly, incriminated; Oriental sore was locally called "fly disease," and it was known that parasites of the group to which the Leishman-Donovan belonged were often carried by flies, not merely suctorial flies, but also non-biting species. Leishman-Donovan, too, had been found in a sore on a dog, which to the eye, and to the microscope, was exactly similar to the Oriental sore of man, and it had been found many times in horses.

thought Sir Patrick Manson had laid a little too much stress on exposure, because he had seen quite as many cases of Oriental sore on non-exposed parts as exposed parts.

pointed out that the evidence for constitutional kala-azar was not strengthened by the theory of exposure; that indicated merely a local inoculation. The patient said that when sores appeared on his feet, he had been walking about in sandals, with bare legs, and it might be that this infection was, therefore, merely local, and akin to the granulomata met with in dissecting-room porters and other people who handled cadaveric material—an infection which, by the way, much resembled Oriental sore in other characteristics.

asked whether the Finsen light or X-rays had been tried as a means of treatment?

said he had seen a good deal of the disease in North Queensland, and he had believed it might be due to the bites of the small jungle leeches which, in such excessive numbers, infested most tropical forests. The Queensland sores were mostly on the face; oftenest on the nose and upper lip. He had seen them also on the arms.