Kala-Azar : An Odyssey Into the Past

Contents: 1. Kala Azar: An Odyssey into the past. 2. The "Black Disease" of the Garo Hills. 3. On the possibility of the occurrence of Trypanosomiasis in India. 4. Further notes on Leishman\'s bodies. 5. Chemotherapy of antimonial compounds in Kala-Azar infection. 6. The Indian Medical Research Memoir, Memoir No. 25, August 1932. 7. Transmission of Indian Kala-Azar to man by the bites of Phlebotomus argentipes, Ann. and Brun. 8. Minutes of the meetings of the Indian Kala-Azar Commission. 9. Report on the nature of Kala-Azar. 10. Resolution on Dr. Roger\'s Report on Kala-Azar. 11. To investigate the prevalence and cause of the disease in the Eastern Sudan (2) pathological report. 12. Kala-Azar Commission to investigate the prevalence and cause of the disease in the Eastern Sudan (1) General Report. Index.

"As we embark on excavating the history of Kala-Azar, one story keeps returning to our mind over and over again. This is about an extra terrestrial landing in the Jardin du Palais Royal, right in front of the Bibliothe\'que Nationale in Paris. On entering the building, he sees so much information stored in one place that our extra-terrestrial decided to write the history of the city. As he browses through the stacks of books, he chances upon 227 volumes of Les Oeuvres completes by Alexandre Dumas. Because of the immensity of this work, he believes that it must be the most authoritative source of information of Parisian history. He pulls out the most dog-eared (and hence most frequently consulted) volume and absorbs himself in Les Trois Mosquetaires. When he finishes, he concludes that the most important figures in the history of 17 century Paris were D\'Artannan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and that Richeliue and Louis XIII were only minor intriguants. He confirms this view in the next volume he pulls out. Upon his return to wherever he came from, he writes a history of Paris. The Three Musketeers come into vogue and everybody regards them as the most important forces behind the changing of events in the strange city on the banks of the Seine. Nobody realizes that the actual history of Paris may be completely different from the history described in this book.

This anthology a catalogue of some of the original articles is essentially a chronicle of great achievements, which seek to give a glimpse of the early history of Kala-Azar research."