The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-06-05
men, MOSQUITOES
AND MALARIA
HOW DANGEROUS LITTLE PEST
CAUSES NLALARIAL FEVER.
Quinine Destroys Germs
Best Plan, However, Is to Kill Mos
quitoes at Their Breed
ing Places.

innate relationship Ol uuiS!uS duu
nurturing, between them, the little
animal that causes malarial fever.
The man keeps it for while, nestled
and nourished in the red corpuscles
of his blood. Then he hands it to
the mosquito, who tucks the little
one-celled creature snugly away on
the wall of his stomach and nurses
it there for a time. Then the mos
quito passes it back to the man again.
And so on, forever and ever.
Without the man nurse the ma
laria germ cannot live, multiply and
replenish the earth. Neither can it
do these things without the mosquito
nurse. The two must cooperate to
keep the malaria germ going.
Malaria Germ Bad Animal.
Now, there is no reason why either
the man or the mosquito should de-
sire to do this thing. The malaria
germ is bad animal. 1t hurts men
even kills them-and doesn't help
mosquitoes any. Conceivably, both
man and mosquito might wish to be
rid of it.
If the mosquitoes could succeed in
killing all the men, the malaria germ
would die out. On the other hand, ii
men could succeed in killing all the
mosquitoes, there would be no more
malaria germs and no more malarial
fever.
And that is the point of "Some
Facts About Malaria,'' United States
department of agriculture farmers
bulletin $50, recently reprinted. The
author is Dr.. L. o. Howard, chief of
the bureau of entomology.
Malaria occurs in localities scat
tered throughout the length and
breadth of the United States wherev-
ed conditions are favorable to the
maiarial mosquitoes. 1t is variously
known as malarial fever, chills and
fever, fever and ague, marsh fever
intermittent fever, and pernlclous
fever. It is caused by parasites which
feed upon the red blood cells. These
parasites are microscopic one-celled
animals called plasmodia, and are in
troduced into the blood through the
proboscis of certain mosquitoes OF the
genus Anopheles. Each parasite en-
ters one of the red blood cells, III
which it lives and grows. When full
grown, each parasite divides, produc-
ing a number of spores. Each OF
these spores leaves the blood cell
, that served as it's nursery and enters
another one in which it feeds and
grows and in turn, multiplies. Final
ly. millions upon millions of them
exist in the blood.
The parasites tend to produce their
spores all at the same time. Millions
of them escape from the blood cells
almost at the same moment. A little
poison escapes from each parasite
with the spores. This little bit of
poison, multiplied by millions, causes
fever. After from to 40 hours or
more this poison is eliminated from
the system of the victim, and the few
er leaves him. But pretty shortly an
other generation of spores breaks out
and goes hunting for fresh cells,
bringing another attack of fever like
the first. So it goes on for months
or. with some jntermissions, possibly
for years.
Much Mooted Question.
= That is what the malarial parasites
do inside the human body. On the
other hand, they get into the mos
quito's body from the blood Of hu-
man being. You remember the moot
question of which came first, the hen
or the egg? This is another one like
it. Whether the malaria parasite was
first in the mosquito or first in the
man nobody knows. But it passes
from one to the other, back and
forth-not the same individual para
site, of course, but the same breed
of parasites.
When one of these anopheline mos
quitoes happens to feed on human
being whose blood contains malaria
parasites, these are sucked with the
blood into the mosquitoes stomach.
The parasite passes through the
stomach wall and finally attaches it.
self to it's outer surface.
There it grows and, after week
under favorable conditions, produces
a large number of spores. These
spores enter the general body cavity
of the mosquito and find their way
into the salivary glands. That mos
quito goes to feed upon human be-