PART I.—IMPERIAL REPORT.
B.—REVENUE SECTION.
V.-BACTERIOLOGICAL LABORATORY.
347. This subject must be dealt with as a whole. As yet no vaccines have
been discovered: this is owing to the fact that the Laboratory is at present
situated in an unsuitable climate. On this point the Imperial Bacteriologist,
Dr. Lingard—reports as follows:
The unfavorable climatic conditions of Poona for bacteriological research were brought
to notice in the year 1892, with the result that the Bacteriological Laboratory will shortly be
moved to the new buildings now in course of construction at Muktesar in the Kumaon Hills
near Almorah; and experiments with a view of discovering vaccines for the prevention of
cattle-diseases demanding bacteriological research, (such as rinderpest, etc.) will be com-
menced as soon as the new Laboratory is completed and fully equipped.
My researches have been mostly confined to a disease of considerable importance known
as Surra, which affects horses, mules, etc.
348. During the year under review Dr. Lingard in September last submit-
ted Volume I of his Report on horse Surra. As it contained many important
results, the following summary is given:—
Surra, the disease dealt with in this report, is a specific and continuous febrile disease
occurring spontaneously in solipeds and camels, and capable of being transmitted by inoculation
to other animals—dog, cat, Guinea-pig, goat, oxen, etc. It is due to the presence in the blood
of an infusorian (Trypanosoma Evansi). It is a very fatal disease in solipeds, no case of recov-
ery having been met with. The malady is characterized by progressive anæmia, and this
leads to wasting and death after a variable period. The mature form of the infusorian is not
continuously present in blood, but appears and disappears at irregular intervals. The report
contains the historical account of the disease. It was first noticed by Evans, who demonstra-
ted the presence of the infusorian, and who also recorded the symptoms, etc., and essayed
treatment though unsuccessfully.
Steel investigated the disease in Burma 5 years later, calling it relapsing fever. Ac-
cording to Steel's observations it seems that the disease, as it is met with in Burma amongst
mules, differs from that met with in the horse in Bombay; but the chief characteristics are the
same, and the presence of the surra organism is invariable. Other observers have met with
the disease—Nuttal, Gunn, and Steel—in India. Ranking was evidently mistaken in his
diagnosis, as he speaks of its being of malarial origin and says that quinine will cure it.
Lieutenant Baldwin and G. H. Evans have given a good account of the disease as met
with in Burma.
The history of surra in the stables of the Bombay Tramway Company is recorded.
From this it appears that although every effort has been made to prevent the introduction of
the disease, it has been so far of no avail.
Geographical Range —This is wide—Dera Ismail Khan, along with the North-Western
Frontier, east of the Indus in the low countries bordering that river. It is very prevalent in
Upper Burma and according to Steel 98 per cent. of horses and mules died from it during the
war. It is also prevalent in the low-lying parts of Bombay, in Berar and the North-Western
Provinces, and probably exists in other countries.
"Etiology—Predisposing causes.—Sex has no influence. It appears to attack animals
chiefly between the ages of 5 and 14 years. Australains suffer more than Asiatics. The loca-
lities in which surra is endemic belong to two distinct kinds of climate—the one with a heavy
rainfall, high temperature, and humid steamy atmosphere; the other a dry arid neighbourhood
presenting a great annual range of temperature. But in both classes of localities inundation
of land during the rains leaves the fields covered with mud at a later date, and evaporation and
concentration of the water in the tanks occur during the hot season. It is therefore, it
appears, necessary for an animal to reside during certain months of the year (chiefly
September, October, November and December) in a locality where surra is endemic
and where he will eat the sedgy vegetation and consume the water from stagnant pools
and wells and other sources which have been contaminated with the meteries morbi. Wounds
of all kinds, and more especially those involving the digestive tract, exert some influence by
affording a point of entry to the infusorian. The bites of the large fly called Bara dhang
may also cause the disease by reason of some of the infusoria adhering to its sucker after
having bitten a diseased animal and being inoculated into the next healthy animal it attacks.
Exciting causes.—Everything points to the Trypanosoma Evansi as the vera causa of
the disease, but this has not been absolutely proven as it has not, up to the present time, been
found practicable to isolate the infusorian and obtain a pure cultivation. It is certain, how-