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Liverpool, Dec. 21, 1906. To the Editor: —Reports have been repeatedly published of late which ascribe to Dr. Koch the discovery of a drug, atoxyl, which has a curative action in the treatment of human trypanosomiasis. The London Times has copied an article to this effect from the Cologne Gazette , and the London Standard has printed a similar article from its Berlin correspondent. These articles have been widely circulated and they lead the public to believe that Dr. Koch was the first to use this remedy in trypanosomiasis. It may be of interest to your readers to know that the beneficial action of atoxyl in experimental trypanosomiasis was discovered by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and that its use has been steadily and publicly advocated by the staff of this school for the past year and a half. The first work of Dr. Thomas on this use of atoxyl

I. INTRODUCTION It is well known that trypanosomes may be absent for long periods from the peripheral blood of an animal or of a person suffering from an infection by trypanosomes, and that although no treatment has been given. It also frequently happens that the parasites may reappear, after a more or less lengthy absence, in the blood of persons or of animals who have apparently been cured by appropriate treatment of an infection by trypanosomes. It is important to collect instances of such disappearances and recurrences of the parasites in order that an opinion may be formed as to the length of time during which a recurrence is possible in cases of apparent recovery from trypanosomiasis or apparent cure. II. HUMAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS The following observations prove that symptoms may be absent for long periods from persons who are infected with trypanosomes, and that those infected may die from

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