(8) Babesia muris (Fantham)[217] was found in white rats. The pyriform parasites are 2 µ to 3 µ long and 1 µ to 1·5 µ broad; oval forms are 0·5 to 1·5 µ diameter.
The usual symptoms of babesiasis (piroplasmosis) are high fever, loss of appetite, hæmoglobinuria, icterus, anæmia, paralysis, and death in about a week in acute cases. In chronic cases there is anæmia, and hæmoglobinuria is less marked. When animals recover, there are still some piroplasms left in the blood. “Recovered” or “salted” animals are not susceptible to reinfection, but ticks feeding on them acquire piroplasms, and are a source of danger to freshly imported animals.
Treatment.—Trypan-blue is the best drug, as shown by Nuttall and Hadwen[218] (1909). It should be administered intravenously in 1 to 1·5 per cent. aqueous solution. A dose of 5 to 10 c.c. is curative for dogs, one of 100 to 150 c.c. for horses and cattle. Unfortunately, the tissues are coloured blue by the drug. The “salted” animals, after trypan-blue treatment, still harbour the parasites in their blood for years.
Genus. Theileria, Bettencourt, França and Borges, 1907.
The organisms belonging to this genus are rod-like or bacilliform, and coccoid or round.
The best known of the species of Theileria is T. parva, the pathogenic agent of East Coast fever or Rhodesian fever in cattle in Africa.
Theileria parva, Theiler, 1903.
Syn.: Piroplasma parvum.
In the blood corpuscles of infected cattle minute rod-like and oval parasites are seen. Some are comma shaped and others are clubbed (fig. 92, 1–12). The rod-like forms measure 1 µ to 3 µ in length by 0·5 µ in breadth; the oval forms are 0·7 µ to 1·5 µ in diameter. The intracorpuscular parasites are said by R. Gonder (1910) to be gametocytes, the rod-like forms being thought to be males, the oval forms to be females. Free parasites are practically never seen in the blood. It is known that it is impossible to produce the disease in a healthy animal by blood inoculation, but only by intraperitoneal transplantation of large pieces of infected spleen (Meyer). There may be as many as eight parasites in a corpuscle. The chromatin is usually at one end of the organism. In some parasites the appearance of the chromatin suggests division, but such division, if it takes place, must be very slow, as it has not been actually seen in progress. The red blood corpuscles appear merely to act as vehicles for the parasites (Nuttall, Fantham, and Porter).[219]