146                    TRYPANOSOMA INFECTION IN RATS            [Vol. XXV, Part II,

Comment. Inoculation with a heavy dose of inoculum by subcutaneous route
also produces short prepatent period (a day or two later) and the results are more
or less similar to those in experiment I.

Experiment III

This experiment was designed in such a way that the starvation group was kept
fasting for four days before and six days after inoculation. The nutritional status
of the host was assessed by taking weights on the day of inoculation and six days of
starvation after inoculation; this is shown in Table II. It was found that the
starving group of rats lost about 13-25 per cent of the initial body weights, while the
control ones maintained more or less constant weights. The intensity of the infection
in both the groups have been compared in Table III.

                                                                 TABLE II

                    Nutritional deficiency of the host compared with the control group

                                                      TABLE III

     Intensity of parasitaemia expressed as number of trypanosomes per 1000 red cells

* Kept fasting for four days previous to inoculation.
Inoculated with 5×10⁶ trypanosomes subcut.