Liasis

Abstract: IN 1846 Berg established that the fungus now known as Candida albicans was the cause of thrush. The first intimation that it might be other than a purely superficial pathogen was probably the demonstration by Virchow (18211902) of fungal elements penetrating the suibmucous layer of the oesophagus (Plaut and Grutz, 1927); in 1861 Zenker described metastasis to the brain, commenting that the infection was probably bloodborne from the thrush lesions of the tongue and gullet. Thereafter reports of systemic spread to the viscera demonstrated at necropsy occurred sporadically (Wagner, 1868; Holler, 1899). Joachim and Polayes (1940) cultured a yeast-like fungus, subsequently identified as C. parakrusei (Polayes and Emmons, 1941), from the bloodstream of a living patient who succumbed to endocarditis and in 1945 Wessler and Browne reported isolation of C. albicans from the bloodstream of a patient who recovered from the infection. The experimental disease has been studied extensively and it is agreed tihat C. albicans is pathogenic for all common laboratory animals when injected by the intravenous route. For some years, following Benham (1931), C. albicans was regarded as the only member of the genus of proven pathogenicity and statements to this effect appear in standard' textbooks (Dubos, 1958). This view has been challenged and there is evidence that other commensal species of Candida are pathogenic (Mackinnon, 1936; Meyer and Ordal, 1946; Mankowski, 1957; Hasenclever and Mitchelil, 1961; Hurley, 1962; Hurley and Winner, 1962). These species have been isolated from monilial lesions in the human and their status with respect to human disease, particularly the disseminated type, should be reassessed, since it is dangerous to regard them as contaminants (Richart and Dammin, 1960). Experimentally, all pathogenic members of the genus result in disease indistinguishable from that caused by C. albicans. It is the purpose of this paper to review the pathology, the main clinical features, the prognosis and the treatment of acute disseminated moniliasis, and to describe three further cases.

Abstract: The genus Liasis comprises two groups of pythons, the olive python, Liasis olivaceus, and the water pythons L. fuscus and L. mackloti. We used partial mitochondrial control region DNA sequences to examine (a) the phylogeography of water pythons from five Indonesian Lesser Sunda islands, New Guinea, and northern Australia, (b) the relationships of the two subspecies of olive pythons, and (c) the relationship of the Papuan python, Apodora papuana, with the species of Liasis. Maximum likelihood, parsimony and distance analyses showed that A. papuana is the sister lineage to all Liasis and that Liasis fuscus/L. mackloti and L. olivaceus are separate lineages. There is also support for the reciprocal monophyly of the two olive python subspecies, L. olivaceus barroni and L. o. olivaceus, and for distinction of island populations described previously as L. mackloti dunni from Wetar and L. mackloti savuensis from Sawu. These two island populations are as equally distinct as the populations from the island cluster of Babar/Semau/Timor. There is strong support for the recognition of two lineages ('eastern' and 'western') of water pythons in Australia. We propose that the drier interior of the Plio-Pleistocene land bridge between Australia and New Guinea acted as a barrier to gene flow, influencing the genetic divergence between the 'eastern' and 'western' lineages of the semi-aquatic water pythons.