Sleeping sickness. The Castellani-Bruce controversy

PROFESSOR Marchese Sir Aldo Castellani died, on 3 October 1971. In obituary notices of this remarkable man, it is stated that he discovered that ‘sleeping sickness’, one of the deadly diseases of tropical Africa, is caused by infection with the protozoal parasite now known as Trypanosoma gambiense This claim, which was vigorously maintained by Castellani himself, is by no means universally accepted. Castellani was undoubtedly the first to discover trypanosomes in the cerebro-spinal fluid of patients suffering from sleeping sickness, but there is reason to believe that he failed to appreciate the etiological significance of this finding, until it was brought home to him by Lieut.-Colonel later Colonel Sir David) Bruce.