Trypanosome Diseases of Domestic Animals in Uganda: II.—Trypanosoma Brucei (Plimmer and Bradford)

Abstract

This species was only met with on one occasion during the work of the Commission in 1909. This was in the blood of an ox from the Mabira Rubber Estate (latitude 0° 30′ N., longitude 32° 55′ E.). The manager wrote that the animal came from the Bukedi District, about 100 miles to the north (latitude 1° 50′ N., longitude 32° 40′ E.). Not much is known of this district, as it has only recently come under administration, and therefore it is impossible to say whether the ox was infected in Bukedi or on the journey south. This is the species of trypanosome which was first discovered by Bruce, in 1894, in Zululand, to be the cause of Nagana, or tsetse-fly disease. During the work of the Sleeping Sickness Commission of the Royal Society in 1903, it was also met with in a herd of cattle from the same district of Bukedi, and then described as the “Jinja trypanosome.” It is impossible to name with any certainty the trypanosome seen in 1903, which affected the horses, camels, and dogs of the Abyssinian Boundary Commission. This was described as the “Abyssinian trypanosome.” Its morphology, as given in the coloured plate, shows it to be similar to Trypanosoma brucei , so that in all likelihood it was either this species or the closely related Trypanosoma evansi . As camels were infected, it was more probably the latter.