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ABSTRACTS
Etude experimentale du Plasmodium gallinaceum parasite de la poule
domestique. Transmissino de ce germe par Stegomyia fasciata et Stegomyia
albopicta. E. BRUMPT (1936). Ann. de Parasit. Human. e. Compar. 14.
597-620.
P ROFESSOR Brumpt described in 1935 a new malarial infection in the domestic
fowls of Ceylon and named this parasite Plasmodium gallinaceum. It seems to
have been seen for the first time by Prowazek (1912) who encountered plasmodial infec-
tion in three domestic fowls of Deli (Sumatra). The next original reference to this para-
site is by Crawford (1933) who in the annual report of the Director of Veterinary Ser-
vices, Ceylon, observed that Plasmodium relictum (=Praecox) had been found in the
blood of several imported fowls usually causing their death. One strain of the parasite,
obtained from Ceylon was transmitted in the course of 23 passages. Chicken, goose
and pheasant are very susceptible to this fatal infection, the mortality rate among the
infected birds being about 80 per cent. The turkey when inoculated shows only scanty
infection. The infection in the peacock and the partridge is very mild and probably
temporary. The duck, guinea-fowl, pigeon, turtle-dove, quail, canary, henhawk, the
sparrow (common), calker, finch and the heron (Bubulcus ibis ibis) of Morocco are re-
fractory to inoculation even with heavy doses of this parasite. Contrary to what is observed
in avian spirochaetosis there is no rise of temperature, even after intense infection with
this parasite. The canary is susceptible to most of the other species of bird malaria
but it is refractory to this infection, whereas the chicken is refractory to most of the
other avian plasmodia but is very susceptible to this infection. This is how this new
identification is made. The sporogony cycle of Plasmodium gallinaceum develops rapidly
in the cosmopolitian mosquito Aedes aegypti (Stegomyia fasciata). The rate of infec¬
tivity in these mosquitoes has been observed to be as heavy as 100% and the intensity
of infection is so great that as many as 1650 öocysts have been seen on the stomach of
a single mosquito. Aedes albopicta (Stegomyia albopicta=S. varigatta) is equally sus-
ceptible to this infection and transmits the disease by biting.
Culex fatigans (originally obtained by the author from India) does not transmit
the disease. The specimens of a strain of Culex pipiens obtained by continuous breed-
ing up to the 27th generation are not capable of transmitting the disease.
The fact of the strict localization of the chicken to areas considered with the wide
distribution of the vector-mosquito seems to indicate that the chicken may be only an
accidental host of the parasite harboured by wild animals of limited geographical dis-
tribution.
The laws of parasitic specificity are very curious.
The chicken and the goose
which are zoologically separated from each other are susceptible to infection with P.
gallinaceum but the guinea-fowl and the domestic duck which are very near in their
systematic position to the above birds are refractory to inoculation. [B. C. B.]
Immunisation of birds against fowl pox and pigeon pox respectively with
viruses propagated on the chorio-allantoic membrane of the developing egg.
R. E. GLOVER (1939). J. Comp. Path. & Ther. 52, 29.
O BSERVATIONS are recorded on the propagation and behaviour of fowl pox and
pigeon pox viruses in the developing egg. Material from several passages was
tested for virulence by inoculations into fowls and pigeons. The reactions produced
with the pigeon pox virus after 50 passages revealed that the strain had become slightly
attenuated for the pigeon but produced well marked purely local reaction in fowls. With
regard to the fowl strain which had undergone 38 passages it was observed that it re-
mained innocuous for the pigeon and there was evidence of decrease in its virulence for
fowls.
Viability tests of egg passaged virus kept in the refrigerator in various substrates
showed that the pigeon pox virus stored in broth was capable of propagation on egg