Cardiac Changes in Dogs Experimentally Infected with Trypanosoma Cruzi

Abstract

Since the discovery of Chagas' disease in Panama in 1931 we have had the opportunity of studying the pathological changes which occur in the acute fatal cases, DeCoursey (1) and Johnson and de Rivas (2). Our survey work indicates, however, that a very large percentage of the persons who become infected with this parasite do not succumb to the infection, but become what has been termed by Chagas and others as chronic cases. The extent of the damage to the heart musculature in the non-fatal cases is not definitely known and the conditions which exist in the so-called chronic cases is equally obscure. For a general review of the subject the reader is referred to a recent article by Yorke (3). Chagas (4) believed that a spontaneous cure does not occur, and that those who escape death in the acute stage all pass into a chronic stage.