Robert Michael Forde

[3] David Bruce, a British army captain investigating the cause of sleeping sickness in animals (nagana), had discovered trypanosomes in the blood of a cow in South Africa in 1894 and these were named Trypanosoma brucei in 1899.

[8] Towards the end of 1902, Forde clarified in the British Medical Journal that he first saw Kelly in May 1901, excluded malaria and alerted Dutton to the organisms he found in the blood.

[10] Around the same time, trypanosomes were discovered in the cerebrospinal fluid of sleeping sickness patients by the Italian physician Aldo Castellani.

[11][12] In 1902, Louis Westenra Sambon raised doubts over Forde and Dutton's priority in discovering the trypanosome, and claimed that they had been preceded by Gustave Nepveu.

This theory was discarded by Ronald Ross who backed Dutton and Forde, and argued that Nepveu had not provided convincing evidence of this.

The hospital in Bathurst, Gambia, c. 1911 [ 1 ]
The senior medical officers' quarters in Bathurst, c. 1911 [ 2 ]
First case of trypanosomatida, with Kelly, Forde and Dutton. Credit: Wellcome Library
Joseph Dutton in The Gambia in 1902–03 [ 7 ]
Trypanosoma forms in a blood smear, the species that causes human trypanosomiasis.