Serological diagnosis of leishmaniasis

Abstract

The author examines the bloodserum of patients suffering from American Skin Leishamniasis making the following tests: intradermal test of Montenegro, Syphilis tests (Wassermann, Kahn, Meinicke), Formol-gel-test like Napier, Formol-gel-test like Nattann-Larrier, Brahamachari-test, Floculation-test in distilled water. All these tests have been made comparatively with each serum. The Leishmaniasis-patients were divided according to the state of their treatment. Besides the serumof Leishmaniasis-patients there was also examined the serum of patients suffering from syphilis, malaria, leprosy and some other diseases. The author deduces that in cases of American Skin Leishmaniasis the above mentioned reactions do not give constant results, except the intradermal test of Montenegro, which the author still considers the best one to prove the diagnosis. As the above mentioned reactions gave sometimes negative and sometimes positive results with nearly all serums, the author conc1udes that they are not specific. The results obtained by the author do not correspond with those obtained by other authors, who have been working at Calazar. The results of the reactions at malaria-serums approach more those of leishmania-serums. As in Brazil the malaria is geographicalIy spread in places where there are also zones of Leishmaniasis, the results of the mentioned reaetions lose much of their value for the differential diagnosis.