AJTMH Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 3(5), 1954, pp. 890-896
Copyright © 1954 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Triatominae in Experimental Transmission of Plague1

Charles T. Ames, Stuart F. Quan AND Raymond E. Ryckman
Department of Entomology, School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, Loma Linda, California, and Bacteriology Unit, U. S. Public Health Service, C. D. C., San Francisco Field Station, San Francisco 18, California

Eight species in two genera of Triatominae have been tested as vectors of plague. The plague bacilli were found to remain infective in Triatoma protracta (Uhler) for 3 days at 30°C., but were negative on the fifth day when the bugs were injected as an aqueous suspension into guinea pigs and mice.

Four adult Triatoma phyllosoma pallidipennis (Stål) in 2 different groups transmitted plague by interrupted feeding; i.e., first feeding on an infected mouse and then feeding on a healthy mouse. These transmissions were probably due to contaminated mouth parts. Thirteen similar feedings were negative using 5 other species of Triatoma.

Triatoma protracta and Mestor megistus (Burmeister) infected with Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas and Pasteurella pestis (Lehman and Neumann) were fed to mice; 4 positive plague infections resulted one of which was pneumonic; 3 mice were negative. Thirteen other tests with plague-infected Triatominae fed to mice failed to transmit P. pestis through the gastrointestinal tract, but produced 3 pneumonic cases.

Triatoma platensis Neiva was the only species to yield plague positive feces out of 17 specimens tested.


1 These studies were aided in part by a grant (E-173) from the National Institutes of Health, U. S. Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and were conducted in Loma Linda and San Francisco.

This paper is part of a thesis submitted by Charles T. Ames to the faculty of Walla Walla College, Washington, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Zoology.






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Copyright © 1954 by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.