Treatment is entirely symptomatic. Some success seems to have followed the administration of salvarsan.
Strychnine for the heart weakness and tonics during convalescence are recommended.
Aspirin is often necessary to relieve the headache and joint pains.
As prophylactic measures the same precaution should be taken as to cauterization of the wound as one would observe in rabies.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LEISHMANIASES
Definition and Synonyms
Definition.—Under this designation we group three diseases, two of which are general infections and one a cutaneous affection. It is now thought that the visceral leishmaniasis of adults or Indian kala-azar and that of young children or infantile kala-azar are one and the same disease. The cutaneous leishmaniasis of the Near East or oriental sore and the various leishmania ulcerations of tropical America are grouped with the others solely by reason of their cause, this being a protozoon of the same genus, Leishmania tropica for the skin leishmaniases, and L. donovani for the visceral ones. Most authorities assign to infantile kala-azar a distinct species, L. infantum.
The visceral leishmaniases are characterized by a chronic course, marked splenic enlargement, progressive anaemia and emaciation together with leucopenia. The cutaneous leishmaniases can only surely be differentiated from other tropical sores by the finding of the leishman bodies from smears made from the granulomatous tissue of the sore.
Synonyms.—Dum-Dum Fever, Tropical Splenomegaly (for Indian Kala-azar), Splenic Anaemia of Infants, Ponos (for infantile kala-azar), Oriental Sore, Biskra Button, Bagdad Boil, Bouton d’Orient, Aleppo Boil, Granuloma Endemicum (for the Eastern cutaneous leishmaniasis), Espundia, Bubas Braziliana, Uta, Forest Yaws (for the American cutaneous leishmaniasis).