4
in relation to this is that undertaken by Captain Patton with regard to the.
distribution of the different species of bedbug.
5. My own researches have chiefly directed to the discovery of the means by
which the extraordinary hereditary transmission of piroplasma through the tick
takes place. The direct study of human disease necessitating time to obtain
material at present presents difficulties and of other researches none appeared to
have a wider importance and greater interest at the present time than the one
undertaken. Its successful issue whilst finally disposing of the affinities of the
Leishman Donovan body to the piroplasmata yields the next instance, after that
of the development of material parasites in the mosquito, of a complete cycle of
development of a pathogenic protozoon in the body of a blood sucking insect.
This research has entailed certain preliminary investigations upon ticks and the
piroplasmata and has in its course led to the discovery of a portion. of the cycle of
development of the hæmogregarine of the dog in the tick.
6. A line of research which has more or less thrust itself upon both Captain
Patton and myself is that upon the mammalian hæmogregarines a subject to which
we have contributed a large proportion of what is known to science. The interest
attaching to the presence of these forms, which were . previously supposed to be
confined to the cold blooded vertebrates, in mammals such as the dog, cat, rat,
squirrel. and others is obvious. It was also thought at one time that some such
parasite in the human subject might be the cause of an important disease of the
white blood corpuscles.
7. A certain amount of work on gregarines by Captain Patton has been of
great utility since it is evident these forms naturally common in insects are very
frequently the cause of error in efforts to trace the extra-corporeal development
of pathogenic protozoa. The same applies to the brief work done upon normal
flagellates of the mosquito, tick, leech, etc.
8. The article by Mr. P. Narasimha Rao Nayudu, the Junior Bacteriological
Assistant, on a new mosquito records a species which by the character of the head
scales is a typical culex but which both looks like a stegomyia and behaves like a
stegomyia. Its eggs are those of the stegomyiæ and the same applies to its larva
and nymph. This mosquito is being sent to Mr. Newstead of the Liverpool School
of Tropical Medicine for identification, but I believe it to be a species already
forwarded by the Assistant Surgeons lately engaged on malarial investigation in
Madras and if so it is a new species. It will be interesting to hear Under what
genus it is eventually classed, the classification by scale characters in this case C
being far from satisfactory.
(iii) EDUCATIONAL.
A course of minor Sanitary Engineering has been held at the institute by
Mr. H. Nowroji, the Assistant Sanitary Engineer to Government, and has been
attended by over 100 students, many of whom have come from Mysore and distant
parts of the Presidency. A class for instruction of Plague Inspectors was conducted
in September and October by Captain W. A. Justice, I.M.S. Lectures and practical
instruction in human and animal vaccination, and an elementary course of lectures
on bacteriology (asepsis), have been given by the Superintendent.
OFFICE OF THE SUPT., K.I.P.M.,
GUINDY, 14th Feb. 1906.
S. R. CHRISTOPHERS, M.B. ,
Captain, I.M.S.,
S u p e r i n t e n d e n t .