Hanck, A.

Stürchler, D.

Wyss, Franziska

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TRANSACTIONS OP THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, VOL. 75, No. 4, 1981. CORRESPONDENCE 617 in a man with GPI who had been infected with the same strain and who died accidentally three months later. In both instances hundreds of sections of liver were examined. Moreover, very recently Krotosky et al. failed to find hypnozoites in this biopsy material. (ii) Similar negative results were found in the simian forms of -quartan malaria- P. inui and P. brasilianum. (iii) Infections with these quartan parasites are easily’cured with blood schizonticides such as chloroquine. It is therefore unnecessary to treat quartan malaria in man with primaquine (required for preventing the true relapse of P. vivax or P. ovale malaria). (iv) The persistent infections in the blood, whether blboh- or sporozoite- induced, urobablv last for the life of the animal: thus quartan infections in man are the most common cause- today of transfusion malaria. But all is not mvth. The auartan neriodicitv of P. malariae was redbgnized from Hippocratic times, while intermittent fevers were well known in An- cient Egypt from the Ptolemaic era; the priest, Neuchatis, in the Temple of Imhotep, besought the God to cure his mother of a quartan ague. In the 13th century, Dante describes in the Infer- no (Canto 17) the “shivering fit of quartan fever when the nails go dead and the victim trembles at the verv sight of shade”. The noet was evidentlv familiar w$h the clinical picture. The death of two of our rulers in the 17th century was ascribed to quartan malaria. James I died in March, 1625, from a possible nephrotic sequela of the chronic disease, while the regicide, Cromwell, died in September, 1658 of an acute intermittent fever sometimes of a quartan nature. The finding at autopsy of the latter, of engorgement of cerebral vessels and the fatality of the condition suggest that I’. falciparum was a more like!y cause than the less severe P. malariue. However, was it warm enough in London in 1658 for the transmission of I’. falciparum by mosquitoes? Finally, Golgi in 1885 demonstrated the 72-hour cycle in the blood of the quartan parasite. I am, etc., P. -C. C. GARNHAM Imaerial Collepe of Science ana Technology, ” London SW7 References Garnham, P. C. C. (1977). The continuing mystery of relapses in malaria. Protozoological Abstracts, 1, 1-12. Marchoux, E. (1926). Paludisme. Paris :Baillitre et fils. Accepted for publication 12th March, 1981. Retinol, onchocerciasis and Onchocerca volvu2us MADAM-II1 an attempt to investigate interactions of vitamin A (retinal) between the human host and Onchocerca vdlvulus,~ which were suggested by a recent clinical and epidemiological studv (HALLER & LAUBER, 1980), we determined the r&no1 con- centrations of the following specimens all obtained from Cameroonian adults: (a) plasma of oncho- cerciasis patients; (b) skin biopsies of the same individuals, presenting with onchocercomata; and (c) skin biopsies of clinically uninfected controls; and of (d) whole adult male and female 0. volvulus isolated by collagenase from extirpated onchocer- comata by SCHULZ-KEY et al. (1977). After sapon- ification and extraction, the retinol concentrations were determined by high pressure liquid chromato- graphy. Quantitation was carried out by planimetry of the peaks in relation to an external standard. The median plasma retinol concentration in eight onchocerciasis patients was 1.4 III/ml (range: 0.8-1’9). In all cases, concentrations were above the critical level of 0.3 IU/ml (= 10 pg/lOO ml), from below which clinical signs of retinol deficiency appear rapidly (WHO, 1976). The median skin retinol concentration in these individ- uals was l-5 IU/g (range: 0.3-7.0). Four controls had a median skin retinol concentration of the same order as infected individuals: 1.2 IU/g (range: 0.6-2 ~8). The four batches of adult whole worms, derived from onchocerocomata of four different individuals, had a median tissue retinol concentra- tion of 12.6 IU/g (range: 1.6-39.7). Compared to the surrounding host tissue, the retinol concentration in tissues of 0. volvulus is remarkably high, i.e., average eight times higher than in the skin. However the concentration does not reach those in fresh human liver, which are normally about 800 IU/g (K~RNER & V~LLM 1976). Our results suggest that further investigations should be made of possible relationships between 0. volvulus, hypovitaminosis A and the clinical signs of onchocerciasis. They do not, however, solve the question of whether or not 0. volvulus is dependent on host retinol for growth and re- production, or if retinol depletion of host tissues might be a contributory factor in the pathogenesis of cornea1 opacities, localized dermatitis (sowda) and other symptoms occurring in both clinical oncho- cerciasis and hypovitaminosis A. We are, etc., D. STURCHLER FRANZISKA WYSS A. HANCK Swiss Tropical Institute, Medical Department, Socinstr. 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Pharmaceutical Division CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland. References Haller, L. & Lauber, E. (1980). Etude des inter- actions entre les taux seriques de vitamines et les parasitoses communement repandues en zone tropicale. Acta tropica, 37, Suppl. 11, 110-119. Korner, W. F. & Vollm, J. (1976). Vitamine, In: Klinische Pharmakologie und Pharmakotherapie. Miinchen: Urban & Schwarzenberg, pp. 361-402. Schulz-Key, H., Albiez, E. J. & Biittner, D. W. (1977). Isolation of living adult Onchocerca volvulus from nodules. Tropenmedizin und Para- sitologie. 28. 428-430. WHO -Expert Committee (1976). Vitamin A deficiency and xerophthalmia. Technical report Series No. 590. Geneva: WHO. Accepted for publication 2nd April, 1981. 

Retinol, onchocerciasis and Onchocerca volvulus

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