Excerpt from Leucocytozoon Canis

James, who found the parasite in six out of 45 dogs, examined by him in various parts of Assam, has given a very complete description of it as seen in the peripheral blood. He does not state whether the dogs were pariah dogs or dogs of European extraction, though the context strongly suggests that they were adult dogs of the latter kind. He describes the parasite as occurring in the polymorphonuclear Ieucocytes, and as consisting of a very characteristic oblong, nucleated, unpigmented body contained in a definite capsule or cytocyst, formed from the body substance of the leucocyte in which the parasite is situated. He notes the difficulty with which the parasite stains, drawing atten tion to the fact that the parasite itself is often not seen, the area occupied be its capsule then appearing as a clear space. In well and deeply stained speci mens he was able to display the parasite, which lay, as a rule loosely, in its oval cytocyst.

James observes that the Ieucocytes are but little affected by the presence of the parasite and that their ameboid movement is not interfered with.

Besides the common forms, James mentions others of rarer occurrence, which are more circular in shape, and in which the contour of the parasite is only very indistinctly marked off from the general body protoplasm of the leucocyte. These forms he conjectures may be a less mature stage of the ordinary encapsuled parasite.

He describes in the parasite a round or oval nucleus, which is generally situated close to one extremity. Bodies containing an elongated chromatin mass centrally situated are also noted, and the nucleus, according to James.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.