The causation and importance of nervous lesions in American trypanosomiasis.

The final cause of nerve-cell destruction during infections with Trypanosoma cruzi has not yet been definitively established. It seems that a cytotoxic or cytolytic substance contained within the leishmania forms is probably liberated after their disintegration and acts, mainly at a short distance and in high concentrations, on the ganglion cells in the vicinity of the ruptured pseudocysts. Recent studies with the electron microscope favour this hypothesis.The destruction of nerve cells in the central or perpipheral nervous systems or in both is responsible for the so-called "late manifestations" of Chagas' disease, which therefore represent "neuropathies" or Chagas' syndromes, i.e., sequelae of the acute phase of the T. cruci infection.