Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1921-08-04

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of anthrax, a serious disease Of men
and cattle, called in England "yool-
sorter's disease" and in America "ma-
lignant pustule" Lister, the great
founder OF modern surgery. follow.
ing Pasteur'5 example, studied the
spelling Of milk and me diseases OF
wounds, with results SO splendid and
far reaching as to revolutionize the
methods of the surgical profession and
to bring about the saving of countless
lives.
Those triumphs of the microscope
came about the end Of the American
Civil War. But in the Franco-Prus-
sian War of 1870 hardly any use was
made of them. Meanwhile however,
the men of science worked on. In
1880 a French military surgeon in
Algiers, DR.. Laveran, saw in the blood
cells of persons who were sick with
malaria curious specks, sometimes
round, sometimes curved like cres-
cents and sometimes wavy-edged or
rosette shaped These specks, which
seemed to come and go according to
the various phases Of the malaria
fever, were absent from the blood OF
healthy persons. Laveran guessed
and, as we now know, guessed correct
ly that they were the "germs" of ma
laria; but he was not able to show
how they got from one victim OF ma
laria to another, and seventeen years
went by before that part of the Prob
lem was solved-again by the aid OF
the compound microscope.
In 1890 new light came from the
startling discovery of two young Amer
lean men of science that insects may
be the Carriers" or the transmit
ters," Of disease from sick animal to
a healthy one. The investigators,
working for the Bureau of Animal
Industry OF the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture, astonished the
scientific world by discovering thai
Texas fever, kind OF malaria Of cat
tie and a highly destructive disease
that had seemed to spread my steri-
ously, was transmitted from OK tc OK,
not directly by contact fcontagionl but
indirectly (infection} through the
agency of "tick," a parasitic in
sect that, having fed upon or bitten
an OK that was suffering from Texas
fever, dropped to the ground and later
attacked and fed upon another OK.
That discovery was immensely I'M
portant and opened UP an entirely new
field for further microscopic studies
II had long been suspected, for en-
ample, that mosquitoes spread ma
laria. The argument was somewhat
like this: Swamps seem somehow con-
nected with malaria, so much so in
deed that the French name for the
disease is raludisme (from palus, a
marsh). Moreover, mosquitoes often
abound in swamps, and mosquitoes
bite mankind. But men of science
naturally made the objection that mo-
Squtoes do not always live in swamps
ard that many swamps do not seem
70 breed malaria. Thus the whole
problem of malaria, swamps and mos
qutoes remained a mystery until in
1897 an English physician, DR.. Ron.
aid Ross, scrutinizing carefully with
the microscope the bodies of certain
mosquitoes found in a malarious dis.
trict Of India, discovered in them
white spccks similar to those detect
ed by Laveran in 1880 in the blood
cells OF human Beings who we're suf.
fering from malaria. DR.. Ross nat
urally concluded that MOSQUITOES
"haYe malaria" and that they can car
~ or transmit it, just as ticks can carry
Texas fever. Before long it was
proved that the female of a certain
kind of mosquito can and does carry
malaria-frst sucking blood from a
human being that has the disease,
then biting another human being and
mus unwittingly transmitting the
"specks" or germs from the sick person
to the healthy one
Once those singular facts were es-
taollshed all became clear. 1t was
seen to be true that some swamps
breed malaria" but naturally only
those swamps in which the mosquitoes
are of the right kind, and even then
only if the insects have sucked the
blood of some human being affected
with malaria.
mus, at the beginning Of the
twentieth centIr.. .,.a.1.iI -, L..