The age-herald., 1898-09-18
MALARIA AND
 MOSQUITOES

l medical
 nounce in 1880 that he had discovered | parasite inside of the red blood corpus
 cles of patients sick of the malarial fever
 that was very probably the cause of the
 disease. He recognized that they were
 parasites belonging to the lowest forms of
 animal life, and probably amoeba, as they
 showed amoeboid movements. It Is to be
 remembered that they not bacteria, | which the lowest forms of vegetable
 life, and different from an amoeba | as a man is from a tree For several years
 his discovery attracted little attention. It l was finally taken up by number of skill
 ed microscopists in this and other malsrial
 countries, and have not only confirmed it,
 but with the aid of more powerful micro-
 scopes assisted in placing the discovery
 upon pretty firm foundation.
 Laveran called the parasites Oscillaria
 malarine. Machiafava and Celli two Ital- | ian observers, suggested the term "Plas- | moium malariae," and it was adopted by 1 the profession throughout the world It is | now being replaced by the word hema to- | Zoa meaning parasite which lives in the | blood
 | How does the malarial parasiteS get into | the blood of man? It has been claimed | that it is conveyed by drinking water, but
 this has been pretty well disproved | number of healthy persons have purposely l drank water from marshes in malarial dis | tricts without contracting the disease, and 1 quite a good number of Italian observers | have drank freely of the water from the | notoriously Pontine marshes at Rome with
 out ill effects. Dew of malarial regions | has also been drunk without untoward re- l suits. Healthy men have been fed the
 blood of malarial patients known to con- | tain the parasite without producing the dis | ease in them.
 The general opinion of the profession is | that the haematozoa can not enter the
 blood through the mucous membrane of
 the stomach or intestines but is killed by | the juices of the stomach.
 | It is maintained by a number of observ- | CTS that air is the medium of infection, | but how the parasite gets into the air and l floats about is not explained. It is a ten | der micro-organsm, and so far we know | does not exist in dried state. In fact, | 1t lives but short time after removal from | the body. If it remains in a moist condi- l tion 1t cannot very well be taken up as | dust and blown about in the air. It | not fly about, hence it must stay pretty
 close to the earth. The theory of the air | as a medium of infection is not at all con- | vincing.
 | Malarial fever has been given to healthy l men by injecting into them blood from a | malarial patient. The fever produced was | of the same type as that which the sick 1 man suffered, and the blood of both pa | tients contains the same variety of aae- | matozoa. For example, if a healthy man
 be injected with blood from malarial pa | tient who has had a fever of the every | other day type, he will have a fever every | other day. It is pretty clear, then, that | in order to produce malarial fever in a
 healthy man the malarial haematozca | must not be fed to him or blown into his nostrilS. but injected under his skin Now, | well as we know the life history of the ma | larial haematozoa in the blood of man. We | know absolutely nothing of it's habits or | life history outside of the body. vast | number of the highest trained bacterolo- | gists, chemists and physicians have tried | in every seeming possible way to make the parasite grow outside of the body, and all | though an infinite variety of media has | been employed. no one has so far succeed | ed. In 1894 Dr. Patrick Manson. an English | physician, came to the conclusion that | since man can be given malarial fever in | no other way than by injecting the haema- tozoa beneath his skin, some insect which | sucks the blood of man and flies about | must be the culprit that plays the trick. | He claimed it the ubiquitous mosquito. | Dr. Manson is of the belief that the hae- | matozoa can live in the blood of the mos | quito well in that of man, so that | when a mosquito splits up a mans skin
 
 | ny to sucking his blood, she leaves a port | of entrance wide open for the haematozoa | to pass from the mosquito to the man dur ing the act of sucking. The English Ily- | sicians quartered In the tropics have taken | up pr. Mansons theory and accumulated | vast amount of evidence that is very | damaging testimony against the mosquito. | Now comes the great German bacteriolo- 1 gist Dr. Koch, as a champion of the mos | quito theory, so that the chances for the | mosquito to escape conviction are slim. 1 Lr. Koch is not only the greatest living l bacteriologist, but one of the greatest sci-- | entists that ever lived for combined in him | is untiring, painstaking industry with that | exquisitely close reasoning faculty coupled | with the vivid ina ginatio which enables | the true scientist to follow his discoveries | to the very verge of their ,consequences | When such man lends the weight of his | opinion to a theory, it is well worthy of | profound consideration. Dr. Koch has re- | gently returned to Germany from South Africa, where he Was sent to study certain | diseases of domestic animals. Upon his re- 1 turn he was invited by the German Coo | nal Society, of Berlin, to give zn account | Of his observations before an audience that | included some of the best medical minds | Of Germany. His talk was informal and | most of it was devoted to malaria. It was | appropriate, because the existence of ma | larla in German East Africa makes the
 work of colonization there extremely diff hcult He distinctly st d that it was his | peIiel that malarlal fever is spread by mos quitos, and not by water or air. He found | that mosquito nets afforded effectual t1ro- | tecton against the disease when wandering | over the infected belts of territory It is
 well known that Emn Pasha and Stanley | also believed in the protection offered by | the mosquito net
 Blood parasites are common in quite a l number of the lower animals. Birds, for | instance, seem to suffer from A malarial | An analogous case of haematozoa being | conveyed to animals by an insect is that of | Texas cattle fever. Texas fever is caused | by haematozoa, that Dr. Allen J. Smith,
 professor of pathology in the University of l Texas, has conclusively proved are con- | Veyed from animal to animal by means of
 the cattle tick Dr. Koch, in his work in
 South Africa, met with a similar disease in
 cattle, and confirmed the discovery of Dr. | Smith, and in his Berlin talk compliments ] ligllX the CQnlnlate nd cf,1I