M.
ABDUSSALAM
211
sheep and a closely allied or identical organism
was found by Abdussalam [1942] in smears
from the inflamed conjunctiva of buffaloes in
Lahore.
So far as I have been able to ascer-
tain, there is no previous record of the occur-
rence of a Rickettsia in the eyes of goats in
India.
While making a clinical examination of a goat
at this college in August, 1942, trachoma-like
lesions were noticed on the conjunctival lining
of the lids and the nictitating membrane. A
Giemsa-stained smear from the lesions showed
a heavy infestation of the conjunctival cells
with a species of Rickettsia.
Twenty-four
other goats of the same type were subsequently
examined and found to harbour a similar
Rickettsia. These goats of the Malvi breed,
were purchased in the local market but the herd
arrived from South Eastern Punjab and nearby
Indian States. Their ages varied from 12 to 15
months.
CLINICAL
The twenty-five goats showed trachoma-like
lesions in both eyes.
These consisted of dull-
red nodules varying in size from that of a poppy
seed to a boiled sago grain.
Several of them
were confluent and disposed in a band extend-
ing along the margins of the lids.
Several of
the nodules were also present on the nictitating
membrane. When the conjunctival surface was
gently rubbed with cotton-wool wetted with
saline the nodules turned bright-red and with a
little more friction began to bleed. The remain-
ing conjunctival surface was pale roseate in
most cases but rarely showed signs of mild
catarrh. In these cases there was an accumu-
lation of muco-pus at the inner canthus but in
most cases there was nothing but a small
quantity of discharge dried along the margins of
the eyelid. There was no evidence of keratitis,
of impairment of eyesight or of any general
illness.
Coles [1935] observed 'acute conjunctivitis
and keratitis' in one group of cases and 'oph-
thalmia' in another. The affection as observed
in the Punjab goats is much milder.
Possibly,
however, these Malvi goats had suffered from
a more acute form of the disease in their kid-
hood and this had reached a chronic and milder
stage by the time they were brought to Lahore.
Unfortunately, transmission experiments could
not be carried out, as unaffected goats could
not be made available; in any case newly-born
kids may have to be employed for this purpose.
However, it seems reasonable to suppose that
the infection is directly transmissible from goat
to goat as is the case with a similar affection
in other animals (sheep, buffaloes, cattle, etc.).
THE RICKETTSIAL ORGANISM
Technique of examination. The nodular sur-
face of the affected conjunctiva was gently
scraped with the edge of a well-ground slide and
the material so obtained smeared on another
slide and dried in the air.
After fixation for
one minute in absolute methyl alcohol and dry-
ing, it was stained by Giemsa method (one drop
of stock stain per c.c. neutral distilled water,
for one hour) or with May-Grünwald-Giemsa.
With a little practice, the infected conjunctival
cells could be easily seen under low power but
the organism itself could only be seen with the
1/12 lens.
Description of the organism. The organism
(Fig. 1) is markedly pleomorphic and one can
observe round or avoid solid forms, ring forms,
horse-shoe or imperfect ring forms,
triangles
with accumulated masses of chromatoid mate-
rial at the somewhat rounded angles and
bipolar form
(mostly with
asymmetrical
sides).
The halos in all but the solid
forms may not be empty spaces but only
chromophobic parts of the protoplasm as observ-
ed by Jackson [1931] in the case of Rickettsia
ruminantinum Cowdry.
There is also a wide
variation in the dimensions of the individual
elements; at their widest points they
were
found to measure from 0.5 µ to 1.4 µ . In
the material at the writer's disposal the forms
with 'halos' (rings, horse-shoes, triangles and
bipolars) were relatively more frequent than the
solid ones.
FIG. 1 A schematic drawing of the various forms of Rickettsia conjunctivae of caprine origin.
In the conjunctival smears examined 40 to 60
per cent of the epithelial cells were found to
be infected.
Many of the cells were tightly
packed with the organism, while others con-
tained a few elements scattered all over the pro-
toplasm (Plate XX, figs. 1 and 2) in most of
the cells clumps of Rickettsia were seen but
they did not show a tendency
to hug the
nucleus as is the case in conjunctival rickett-
siosis of pigs [Unlenhuth and Haendel, 1913]
and of man [Heymann, 1913].
Occasionally
one finds small clumps of the organism free in