The Breeding and Maintenance of Trombicula deliensis in the Laboratory for Experimental Purposes

areas in India and the Far East, but the dis| tribution of" troops over wide areas in the Last during the second world war revealed the widespread nature ofthe endemic foci of typhus of this type. Bengal which was supposed to be free of such a disease was soon shown to. possess many endemic foci, some immediately around Calcutta. Investigations in these foci revealed that rats were infected with Rickettsia orientalis the causal agent of XK typhus and that they were also heavily parasitized by larva) ?f T. deliensis the suspected vector. This gave us an opportunity to find out if T. deliensis was the carrier of R. orientalis in this area. In that connection we had to breed T. deliensis in the laboratory. Before one can obtain certain evidence of the role of this mite transmission, it Js necessary to breed the mite in captivity so that laboratory-bred larval mites will be available in sufficient numbers for use in transmission experiments. This had not been done till now.