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A brief history of the disease (continued)

Texts from the Inca period in the 15th and 16th centuries, and then during the Spanish colonization, mention the risk run by seasonal agricultural workers who returned from the Andes with skin ulcers which, in those times were attributed to "valley sickness" or "Andean sickness". Later, disfigurements of the nose and mouth become known as "white leprosy" because of their strong resemblance to the lesions caused by leprosy. In the Old World, Indian physicians applied the Sanskrit term kala azar (meaning "black fever") to an ancient disease later defined as visceral leishmaniasis.

In 1901, Leishman identified certain organisms in smears taken from the spleen of a patient who had died from "dum-dum fever". At the time "Dum-dum", a town not far from Calcutta, was considered to be particularly unhealthy. The disease was characterized by general debility, irregular and repetitive bouts of fever, severe anaemia, muscular atrophy and excessive swelling of the spleen. Initially, these organisms were considered to be trypanosomes, but in 1903 Captain Donovan described them as being new.

The link between these organisms and kala azar was eventually discovered by Major Ross, who named them Leishmania donovani. The Leishmania genus had been discovered.