Medicine: Kala-azar

Kala-azar or dum-dum fever, disease common in China, India and South America but very rare in the U. S., revealed itself in New York City last week. George Mosher, 14, was the victim. The cause of the disease is an oval protozoon with a short, slender tail. They congregate, after the disease advances, in the spleen, liver, bone marrow and the blood. Suspected of carrying the disease from person to person are bedbugs, fleas and other arthropods. Kala-azar is usually fatal. Small George Mosher did not know that. All he knew last week was that he was listless and that good people were giving him blood by transfusion. Keeping him alive that way, doctors tried to cure him with salts of antimony, only known medicinal help (TIME. Sept. 17. 1925).