[Kala-azar originating in Ischia]

Four weeks after returning from a holiday on Ischia, a 53-year-old man fell ill with nocturnal sweating, fever, severe general malaise and hepatosplenomegaly. Sternal marrow and liver punctures revealed an infection with Leishmania donovani, i.e. Kala-Azar. Characteristic features were hyperplasia of the plasma cells in the bone marrow and liver, together with lymphoplasmocytoid cell wash-out and polyclonal IgG proteinaemia. Treatment with pentamidine (Lomidine) was unsatisfactory, while all manifestations of the disease regressed after two courses of sodium stibogluconate (Pentostam), although the hypergammaglobulinaemia and hyperproteinaemia disappeared only slowly. The plasma-cell hyperplasia in conjunction with the hypergammaglobulinaemia, which suggest multiple myeloma, is interpreted as a result of antibody formation by the chronic parasitic infection. Together with storage-cell hyperplasia it is also taken to be the cause of the peripheral leukopenia and thrombocytopenia.