Kala-Azar in Turkey.
—At the 3d Turkish microbiology congress held at Ankara Oct. 4-6, 1948, Prof. Arif Ismet Çetingil of Istanbul University reported on kala-azar in Turkey, the first case of which appeared in Turkish medical literature in 1931. The clinical symptoms resembled those of malaria, but spleen puncture revealed Leishmania donovani. The patient, a girl of 16, was given 32 days of ethylstibamine therapy and recovered. In 1935, Professor Çetingil diagnosed kala-azar (autochthonous) in a second case, in a boy 5 years. The patient was presented at a meeting of the Turkish medical society. In 1935, kala-azar was diagnosed in three cases at the same medical department of the university in children 6 to 7 years old. Extreme splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, and anemia were present in all patients, and sternal and spleen puncture revealed Leishmania. The red blood cell count was two to three million, the white blood cell count