Lepidosiren

“ The fish called Lepidosiren (Lepidosiren paradoxica) is one of the only three still existing survivors of the once prominent group of Dipnoi, or lung fishes, which are characterized by the possession of well-developed lungs in addition to their gills. Mr. Graham Kerr, who spent several months in the swamps of the Gran Chaco, South America, a habitat of these fishes, describes them as living among the dense vegetation of the swamp, swimming in eel fashion, or clambering through the mass of vegetation by means of their leglike limbs. ”

“ With respect to Lepidosiren, Ganoid fishes, perhaps Ornithorhynchus, I suspect, as stated in the "Origin," (95/7. "Origin of Species" (Edition VI.) , page 83.) , that they have been preserved, from inhabiting fresh-water and isolated parts of the world, in which there has been less competition and less rapid progress in Natural Selection, owing to the fewness of individuals which can inhabit small areas; and where there are few individuals variation at most must be slower. ”

“ As some time elapses between the falling of the rain, when the creature awakes, and the dissolving of the cocoon, there must be some peculiar structure of the respiratory organs. Otherwise, the Lepidosiren, being a fish, and breathing by gills, must die before it can reënter the water. ”

“ When the Fish finally sinks a few bubbles of surplus air escape through the gill-clefts. A nocturnal and protective change of colour, similar to that described in Protopterus, has been observed, and although most strikingly manifest in the larvae, it also occurs in individuals of older growth. The flesh is much esteemed as food by the Indians, who wade into the swamps and transfix the Fishes with spears. During the rainy season the Lepidosiren eats voraciously, and a reserve of fat is stored up in the tissues. ”

“ In Ceratodus this is effected by an extension of the interauricular shelf into the ventricle. In Lepidosiren the separation of the two ventricles is complete but for a small perforation anteriorly, the heart in this respect showing a closer approximation to the condition in the higher vertebrates than is found in any Amphibians or in any reptiles except the Crocodilia. The conus arteriosus is of interest from the valvular arrangements in its interior to prevent regurgitation of blood from ventral aorta into ventricle. ”

“ In Protopterus (Fig. 133) and Lepidosiren (Fig. 134) the posterior median bone is non-existent, and its place is taken by a large fronto-parietal, which forms the greater part of the cranial roof, internal to the jaw muscles, and is much larger in the latter Dipnoid than in the former. Circum-orbital bones are present only in Neoceratodus. A large parasphenoid supports the cranial floor. Vomers are absent, although there are two small vomerine teeth.
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Fig. ”

“ It breathes with its lungs as continuously and rhythmically as a mammal, the air being inhaled through the mouth. The animal makes no vocal sound, the older observation that it utters a cry like that of a cat being doubtless erroneous. Its strongest sense is that of smell. In darkness it grows paler in color, the black [Pg 621] chromatophores shrinking in absence of light and enlarging in the sunshine. In injured animals this reaction becomes much less, as they remain pale even in daylight.
Fig. 390.—Larva of Lepidosiren paradoxa 30 days after hatching. (After Kerr.) ”

“ There is no lining to the nest, and the eggs are deposited on the bare mud. Until the eggs are hatched, which occurs about the eighth day, and while the larvae are in the nest, the male remains on guard, and is apt to bite severely an incautious intruder. Probably with the view of aerating the eggs the water is continually lashed about by the tail of the guardian parent. The male has no trace of the peculiar vascular filaments which adorn the pelvic limbs of the male Lepidosiren during the breeding season. ”

“ They have isolated the bacillus of leprosy. They can determine by bacteriological examination whether or not a person is a leper; but they are as far away as ever from knowing how that bacillus finds its entrance into the body of a non- leper. They do not know the length of time of incubation. They have tried to inoculate all sorts of animals with leprosy, and have failed.
They are baffled in the discovery of a serum wherewith to fight the disease. And in all their work, as yet, they have found no clue, no cure. ”

“ A symmetrical distribution of the patches strikes one, and has been regarded as indicative of a central localisation of the leprous poisons of which the patches are a tropho-neurotic vaso-motor symptom; but in many cases there is absolutely no symmetry, and the discovery of bacilli in the patches themselves proves them to be the direct result of the action of the lepra poison. The lymphatic glands corresponding to the position of the patches are always swollen, and the swelling may persist long after the disappearance of the patches. The duration is very varied ”

“ Probably intimate personal contact, and certain concurrences in the -phases of the disease with special conditions in the health or physiological state of the recipient, are necessary for the successful communication and acquisition of leprosy. The simple implantation of the bacillus does not suffice; for, as already pointed out, of the many inoculations that have been made only one has any claim to be regarded as having been successful. Articles of diet, such as imperfectly cured fish, have been incriminated as media for infection. ”

“ Deycke obtained from a case of nodular leprosy a peculiar acid-fast bacterium— Streptothrix leproides— resembling in many respects Bacillus leprce, but differing from the latter inasmuch as it could be readily cultivated. In unskimmed milk it forms a brilliant orange-red pellicle, which on digestion with ether yields a fatty substance— "nastin"— of definite chemical character. Injections of pure nastin in oily solution give rise in some lepers to inflammatory reaction of varying degrees of intensity— it may be violent; in other lepers again no such reaction occurs. ”

“ If one examines, microscopically, sections or teased preparations of fresh nodules, one sees little else but cells, with distinct nuclei, usually of the size of a white blood corpuscle, or rather larger. There are also a few larger so-called epithelioid cells, with larger nuclei, and among the cells, fragments of connective tissue and of blood vessels. With a higher power, one sees in the fluid of the preparation small straight rods, which are not destroyed by addition of potash. These are the lepra bacilli, and thus were they first discovered in the year 1871. ”

“ We have indeed sought above to point out the possibility that the lepra bacillus is attenuated in the maculo-anæsthetic form of the disease; but we know of no phenomenon which would allow us to assume that the bacillus could occasionally become quite innocuous, and call forth no symptoms of disease.
All this, however, proves nothing against the hypothesis; and it is always a dangerous thing to use a simple absence of knowledge either to contradict or to found a hypothesis. ”

“ It must come from some pre-existing germ whose habitat may be earth, air, water, beast or man, and since leprosy has never been found in any animal except man, nor in any virgin country to which a human leper has not had access, and since the arrival of a leper in such a country is followed by an outbreak of leprosy among those who have associated with him, there is little room for doubt that man acquires the germ of the Bacillus lepræ from man, and not from other animals, nor from local or climatic conditions. ”

“ In the Settlement, lepers and non-lepers mingle freely; at a shoot of the Kalaupapa Rifle Club, the same guns are used by those afflicted and those free from the disease; in horse-racing, the same horses are ridden by all; and in baseball games, bats, gloves, and masks are freely exchanged. Not easily does the bacillus leprae pass from body to body. Only is there danger when one has open wounds which might come in contact with leprous flesh. The usual precaution, after being with lepers, is the washing with antiseptic soap, and the changing of clothing. ”

“ One is very apt to be deceived in estimating the value of a drug in leprosy. The leper applies for treatment generally during, or soon after, one of the periodical exacerbations of the disease, and when the nodules and other eruptions are active and well pronounced In the natural course of events, and without treatment of any description, especially if the patient be placed under favourable hygienic conditions, these acute manifestations tend to become quiescent, and the disease temporarily to ameliorate. ”

“ The question as to heredity now is, Can the lepra bacillus be conveyed by heredity. This is Baumgarten’s view; he holds that both Tuberculosis and Leprosy are thus spread, that the bacilli of both diseases may be transferred to the children and there remain dormant, but that they can thence be conveyed to another generation, and from it to a fourth, fifth, etc. generation, and then in the third, fourth, etc. generation become once more active and cause the disease. ”

“ Thornton, of the Leper Hospital of Madras, said:—That his experience showed him [31] that Leprosy was contagious, and that it was likely to spread to this country; that the disease, however, could rarely, if ever, be communicated, except in the case of a healthy person by an abraded skin, coming in contact with a Leper. “The sufferings of the afflicted can be alleviated by (1) a liberal diet; (2) oleaginous anointings, by which the loss of sleep, one of the most distressing symptoms of the disease, can be prevented.” ”

“ The elephantiasis of the Greeks, or corresponding juzam of the Arabians, was rendered by the term lepra in almost every Latin translation from the Arabian or Saracenic school; and hence it is that we find this term lepra used by the medical and other authors of the succeeding period, as the common appellative for the individual disease to which the two former designations were originally applied. In many medical works of the middle ages the single name “lepra”154 is employed ”

“ If we adopt the view that Leprosy is another instance of disease induced by the presence of a particular microbe or bacillus, as in so many other diseases now the subject of absorbing interest to both the professional and the non-professional public, we may account for most of the facts adduced in support of the various theories; especially if we admit that there is reason to believe that such microbes, or [38] self-propagating infecting agents, vary greatly in the rapidity with which they permeate the body. ”

“ That leprosy is really contagious is primarily evident from its nature as a bacillary disease. No one has been able to demonstrate the presence of the bacillus outside the human body, so that we may abandon the idea of a miasmatic origin.
Unfortunately, all attempts to inoculate animals have failed. The now old experiments of Neisser and Damsch, as well as our own, we may pass over. We dealt with them in our Copenhagen communication. Since then Melcher and Ortmann believe that they have communicated the disease to rabbits. ”

“ As being opposed to the possibility of culturing the human leprosy bacillus, it may be stated that most of the experiments along this line with rat leprosy, a disease occurring naturally in rats and caused by an organism almost identical, as to lesions produced, with the leprosy bacillus, have been negative. ”

“ Later investigation has proved that these brown clumps are nothing else but collections of lepra bacilli broken down into granules, and they have received from Neisser the well-chosen name of “globi,” as they usually appear in spherical form. Unna declares, in accordance with his view of the position of the lepra bacilli outside the tumour cells in the lymph spaces, that these “globi” are collections of bacilli in the lymph vessels, and that the vacuoles have arisen from the falling out of bacilli in the middle. ”

“ Sex; occupation; social and hygienic conditions. —Apart from social conditions as affording opportunity for contagion, sex seems to have little bearing on the liability to leprosy. The same may be said of occupation, and social and hygienic conditions in general. Very probably bad food and bad hygienic circumstances have in this, as in most germ diseases, a predisposing influence but they certainly cannot create a lepra bacillus and leprosy, any more than they can create an acarus and itch. ”

“ Symptoms.— Although, as will "afterwards be explained, the Bacillus leprœ is the cause of all leprosy, the clinical manifestations of its presence are far from being identical in every case; indeed, they are almost as varied as are those of syphilis or of tubercle. Our early conceptions of the disease, derived for the most part from the Bible or poetical literature, in which the leper is symbolical of all that is loathsome and hopeless, are apt to mislead. As a matter of fact, in its earlier stages leprosy is far from being always, or even generally, a striking disease. ”

“ Except in Spain, where some increase has taken place, the disease is dying out. The number of lepers in Norway was 3000 in 1856, but has now dwindled to a few hundreds. They are no longer numerous in any part of Europe. On the other hand, leprosy prevails extensively throughout Asia, from the Mediterranean to Japan, and from Arabia to Siberia. It is also found in nearly all parts of Africa, particularly on the east and west coasts near the equator. In South Africa it has greatly increased, and attacks the Dutch as well as natives. ”

“ No doubt there is danger of contracting the disease by inoculation. Some claim that the use of imperfectly cured, or putrid fish as an article of diet, is the cause of leprosy. This seems reasonable, but there is ample evidence that it is not the only cause. Both cause and cure still furnish fields for investigation by medical science. Of the 4,190 lepers in Burma only about 560 are in Leper Homes.
This work is conducted by the Wesleyan and Roman Catholic missions in Mandalay, the Rangoon municipality, and the Baptist mission in Maulmein. ”