![Sample our Bioscience journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5925/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Bioscience.jpg"})
Abstract
Pneumocystis carinii was first described in the lungs of guinea pigs during studies of experimental American trypanosomiasis by Chagas in 1909.1 The organism was thought to represent a variant in the sexual life cypcle of Trypanosoma cruzi. Carini found the organism in trypanosome-infected rats, but it was not until 1912 that the organisms were recognized as belonging to a new genus and assigned the name of Pneumocystis carinii when Delanöes identified identical forms in the lungs of rats which had not been infected with trypanosomes.2