The cultivation of the trypanosomes of the brucei group is generally conceded to be much more difficult than that of the members of the lewisi group. While the latter have been cultivated in a variety of media and have been studied to some extent from the standpoint of their nutritional requirements and metabolic activities (Lwoff, 1940; von Brand, Johnson, and Rees, 1946; Chang, 1948), the cultivation of the former has been less successful, and therefore very little physiological information is available concerning them. Reichenow (1937b) stated that the addition of sugar did not improve his medium for the cultivation of the pathogenic trypanosomes. von Brand and Johnson (1947) found that the respiration of the proventricular form of T. gambiense was sensitive to cyanide. This is in contrast to that of its bloodstream form.
Three types of media have given some measure of success in the cultivation...