Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-29
MALARIAL PARASITES.
Breed In the Blood Corpuscles and
Cause Fever ard Ague.

From the National Review.
About the middle of last century, how
ever the most important Of the pure SCI
ences. experimental pathology. sprang into
being. The great improvements then eff
.fected In the microscope enabled her, as
sisted by her sisters Of biology, to COM
mence that minute study OF disease which.
If man Is rational and disciplined enough to
act upon her teaching, will release him
from many of the worst evils which now
affect him. AS regards malarial fever. the
first result was the discovery of the fact
that the blood and certain glands Of a
patient are infiltrated with characteristic
minute black Eranules called the malarial
pigment 1t was soon shown that these
granules are formed in the blood and are
derived from the haemoglobin. or substance
of which the blood corpuscles are COM
posed; and people at first thought that
they consisted of hamoglobin altered by
the action of the paludic thetelluric
poison. In 1880. however. 1t was recognized
that these pigment granules are really the
discarded refuse-matter of innumerable lit
tie parasites which live within the blood
corpuscles and cause the disease.
This important discovery was made in
Algeria by DIR. Laveran, a French army
surgeon. almost simultaneously with the
discovery, due to Pasteur,, Lister, Koch and
others, that the bacteria, the lowest forms
maladfes, such as anthrax, tuberculosis,
cholera. typhoid leprosy and Malta fever.
The date was therefore an epoch In history,
because for the first time man learned the
actual cause Of much Of the disease which
cuts short his life. But Laveran's observa-
lions opened a new chapter. The parasites
OF malaria are not bacteria, but protocol,
the lowest form Of animal life. Let me en-
deavor to give simple description of them.
/ suppose that the educated reader, familiar
as he is with the PHILOSOPHERS and arts of
mankind, may have heard that his own
blood consists chiefly Of little yellow bodies,
called red blood corpuscles, floating in a
clear fluid. These bodies are about one
thirty-three hundredth of an inch in diam
eter. and. In man OF loo pounds In
weight number about twenty-si billions.
We shall obtain some idea Of the magni-
tude Of this number when we compute that
to count 1t at the rate of a hundred a
minute, day and night without rest, would
take about five hundred thousand years.
The parasites live within these corpuscles
at the expense Of the haemogiobin, OF which
they are mainly composed, somewhat as
grub lives within nut. When they are
very numerous, as they frequently are dur
ing bad attack of fever, one In twenty
five corpuscles maybe infected. giving a
rough estimate of a billion invaders present
throughout the body; but when their num-
bers fall below let US say. two hundred and
fifty millions, the patient will not as a rule
be conscious of their presence. When they
continue to breed in it in varying num-
bers like rats in ship, for many years;
but happily they often die out more quici. !.
owing either to medication by Quinine, or
to the elaboration Of some germicidal proc
ess by the body itself.
For several years Laverans discovery OBJ
tanned little credence or even notice; but
then a large number Of observers living in
many countries began to follow 1t with the
greatest care and interest. Golgi of Pavia.
together with Laveran himself, first
showed the mechanism by which the para
sites reproduce themselves. Each of the
little bodies safely ensconsed within its
red corpuscle, gradually grows in size, and
on reaching maturity breaks up into num-
Der of spores. The shell of the corpuscle
then bursts, allowing the spores to fall into
the fluid of the blood; and each spore next
attaches itself to a fresh corpuscle. enters
it. and lives within it as Its parent had
done, producing in its turn fresh crop OF
spores: and SO on, ad inflnitum. Thus. II
a single parasite enters the body and sur
wives, 1t will be able to produce millions and
billions after a sufficient lapse of time. just
as a single ear of corn will cover whole
country with. its progeny. Moreover. just
as all the plants in field of-co reach
maturity at about the same time. So as
Gogli showed do all the members of the
same generation of malaria parasites Hun
dreds of millions Of them produce and lib
crate their spores within about an hour OF
each other; and more important still, it is
just at this moment when all the spores
are liberated together that the patient will
be attacked by the ague AT followed by
fever-symptomS so characteristic OF ma
laria