The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1910-09-23

the skin Of the feet and, making its
way to the intestine, establishes itself
| there as a bloodsucker.
Such problems keep the government
health authorities moving. As soon as
one is solved another turns up-as, for
instance, in the case Of the mysterious
spotted fever" which has been max.
ing so much trouble lately in the
mountainous regions of Montana and
adjacent Rocky Mountain states. 1t
tremely fatal, four out Of every five
persons attacked by II in the Bitter
Root valley (where It assumes its
most virulent form passing speedily
from the sick bed to the burying
ground A characteristic symptom is
an eruption Of pimply red spots all
over the body.
Investigation has proved that this
disease is due to a germ" Of some
sort-presumably a bacterium, but so
minute as not to be visible under the
microscope-which is carried by
certain species Of wood tick. There
is no question Of the accountability of
the tick, for the malady has been sue
cessfully transmitted, in an expert
mental way, through the medium of
its bite, from guinea pig to guinea pig,
from monkey to monkey and even
from human being to human being (in
two (volunteer) instances. Some of
the insects were brought to Washing
ton and encouraged to lay eggs, which
we're duly hatched by DR.. Stiles; but
it does not appear that more than a
very small minority of them, in a
state of nature, are infected. These
exceptional individuals probably ac-
Quire their infection by biting some
animal which harbors the germ, but
what animal that is, nobody knows.
Speaking of volunteers, there seems
never to be any lack of them, where
risks have to be run in the experiment
tai study Of diseases. 1t does not mat
ter how deadly the malady may be,
there are always men ready to take
their lives in their hands for such pur-
poses, often without reward. Such
was the case when a call was issued
in Cuba in 1900, for soldiers willing
to expose themselves to the bites of
mosquitoes carrying the infection of
yellow fever 1t was the case again
recently, when Capt Charles F. Craig,
Of the army medical corps, wanted
men in the Philippines for a practical
test of his theory that dengue, or
"breakbone" fever owes its dstribu-
ton to a mosquito Of another species
the night-hying culex fatigans, an in
sect already positively known to be
the carrier Of the parasite thread
worm which causes elephantiasis.
Wherever one looks, in the study of
one finds animals Of various
kinds acting as the carriers of the
germs which make the mischief Sci
ence as yet has made only a beginning
in this sort of investigative work. The
Anopheles mosquito is known to be
The sole conveyor and distributor of |
the malaria microbe; but where did |
he microbe of malaria come from |
1t Is, as everybody knows, |
l protozoon-that is to say, an animal |
of a low form; but its or
gin is a puzzle.
The same thing might be said of
he bacterial parasites that cause yel-
ow fever and dengue. It is thought
hey are closely related, the symptoms
hey produce being somewhat similar,
,ut nobody ever saw either of them
like the germs of measles and scarlet
ever, they are so minute as to be in
yisible, even under a high-power mi
.roscope.
AS for dengue, to find some way
# combating it was of special i'm
from the viewpoint of the
var department, because it was Of
cry troublesome in the Philippines,
out in explosive epidemics,"
nd incapacitating entire companies
or fighting purposes with a stimuli
most distressing. The
manner Of it's spread was such as OBJ
iously to suggest an insect agency,
nd culex fatigans, always most plen-
iful where and when dengue ap-
cared, was naturally suspected