The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1907-05-22
The Story of Malaria.
By II. L. YATES.

Inc OtOry OI Mdldrld, US tOlu ny
Major Ronald Ross, F. r. S., first to
an audience of the Royal Colonial
Institute of Great Britain, and later
in the pages of the National Review,
is full of most interesting facts that
are apt to pass the memory, unless
recalled from time to time. Our
present knowledge, as he reminds
us, is the result of more than two
thousand years of patient study, and
it forms what might be called gi-
gantic epic of science. 1t tells of
long and hard-fought battle between
man and nature, and it is only to-day
that we even begin to see the promise
of victory.
If we go back to the writings of
Hippocrates and his successors, some
400 years B. c., we learn that the
Greeks and Romans were then study
Ing the character of malaria, and had
distinguished its class by two i'm
portant points; the first was that
malarial fevers are not continuous in
type, but occur in periodical attacks,
and these attacks they classified as
quotidian, tertian, and quartan; that
is, occurring every day, every alter
nate day and every third day. AL
though we now understand that at
tacks may, by overlapping, present
the appearance of continuous fever,
this does not contradict the ancient
classification. The second point found
out by them, and attested by succeed
ing experience, is that there is direct
connection between marshes and
swampy pools or soil and the prevail
ence of this kind of disease. They
even went so far as to point to a
probability Of the disease being dis
seminated by species of germ or
microbe to living man, thus approach
ing remarkably near to our nine
tenth century discoveries" In
iced, we seem not to have disproved
any of the theories of the ancients,
but rather to have enlarged upon
them, added to their number, and
established their certainty. After
the ancients-a very long time after
ward-the next step forward was
taken in South America. To vii
lager of Malacotos, in Ecuador, we
owe the discovery of the efficiency of
Peruvian bark as a cure for malarial
fever-or as we should more correct
ly term it, an antidote. This became
known in Europe about 1910, and
acquired fame after it had been used
to alleviate the agues of Louis XIV.
In 1920 two French chemists sep
arated from Peruvian bark its essen
tial alkaloid, quinine. Still, after
the lapse of two and half centuries,
the bark or it's alkaloid are the ac-
cepted specifics against malarial fe-
vers. BY experimenting with the use
of these drugs, it was found possible
to separate with greater precision the
different types of fever and determine
the periods of attack.
To the story of malaria another
chapter was soon after this contrib
uted by the British military and naval
surgeons, at a time when British
ships were exploiting all waters.
These found malarial fever to be CON-
mon in all tropical and sub-tropical
countries-that it was an enemy like
ly to be encountered almost any
where. They added their affirmation
to the theory that soil as well as
water held the fever poison. About
the middle of last century, however
when biology became favorite study
and the microscope more perfected
instrument, the granules of what is
now called malarial pigment were
| found in the blood, and these pigment
granules were found to be the re-
fuse matter of innumerable little
parasites, which, living within the
blood, caused disease. Almost at the
| same time that this discovery was
made, Pasteur, Koch, Lister and 9TH
ers were discovering that bacteria
we're the cause of anthrax, tubercu
losis, cholera, typhoid and leprosy
The two great discoveries mark to-
gether an epoch in history. The es
] sential difference between them
briefly stated, is that malarial germs
are protozoa, or the lowest form Of
animal life, while the bacteria repre-
sent the lowest form of vegetable life
By close study of the processes fol
lowed by the parasites of malaria, 4
was found that their capacity to re
produce themselves was almost un
ending, but that it kept to the ordel
of successive generations; and jus
as all the stalks of corn in fielC
which was sown at one time reacl
maturity together, so did the mem
bers Of the same generation of ma
laria parasites. The shell of tn
blood corpuscle which has held tn
growing parasite bursts when
reaches maturity, and allows 1t
spores to fall into the fluid Of tn
blood, and these again fasten them
selves on other corpuscles and begil
to terminate in their turn. Million
of parasites will liberate their spore
at the same time, and 1t will be pre-
cisely at this time that the patien
will be attacked with the ague fiji
followed by fever. AS some OF tn
| X l.,