William Boog Leishman-A Brief Reminder of His Life and Work on the Occasion of His 150th Birthday.

William Boog Leishman was born 150 years ago. Although his description of "small round or oval bodies" in a smear from the spleen pulp of a soldier who had died of kala-azar was not the first one of Leishmania and although Leishman did not make the diagnosis of kala-azar and misinterpreted the microorganisms to be trypanosomes, his article became the springboard for a series of studies that, within a few months, established Leishmania as a previously unknown genus of protozoa and led to appreciation of the clinical spectrum of kala-azar and the relationship between cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis.