REPORTS of a disease simulating the type of lesion seen in cutaneous leishmaniasis were first made in 1756 by Hasselquist and Russel.1 Also in the middle of the nineteenth century, the same type of lesion was described by French medical officers in Africa. Laveran2 demonstrated in 1880 that this condition could be transmitted and that a fly was an important factor. In 1885 Cunningham described the histologic picture and stated that there were bodies within the cells which were circular to elliptic in shape. Ryan, in 1886, also described some cells which were filled with bodies which he regarded as cocci with capsules. He attempted cultures in human blood but obtained no results. It was not until 1903 that Leishman and Donovan made independent reports describing the protozoan. During the same year Wright3 in Boston described the organisms found in the first case of cutaneous leishmaniasis reported