The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseasesStitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Science
The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases
Stitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Tropical medicine
By 1885 the Italians were convinced that the bodies discovered by
Laveran were the cause of malaria and Marchiafava, by staining with
methylene blue, noted the ring forms and the increase in size up
to that of the sporulating parasites. To Golgi we not only owe the
discovery that the malarial paroxysm coincides with the period when
the sporulating forms (merocytes) simultaneously reach maturity
but also the exact working out of the cycle of quartan malaria.
He even showed three stages of development of the parasites in a
triple quartan. It may be stated that Golgi, Marchiafava and Celli
are the ones to whom we owe our first knowledge of the existence
of different species of parasites for different kinds of malaria.
In these investigations they showed that as a rule they could
reproduce a certain type of malaria by injecting the blood of
such a case of malaria into a well man. Gerhardt, in 1884, was
the first to produce malaria by the injection of malarial blood.
Laveran insisted all this time that there was but a single species
of malaria. About this period a great deal of research was carried
on as to the origin of malarial parasites and it was found that
many animals harbored parasites similar to the malarial parasites
of man. In 1891 the chromatin staining method of Romanowsky was
introduced which by bringing out the variations in chromatin
distribution led to more accurate study of species and cycles.
Our present exact knowledge as to the existence of 3 species of
malaria is largely due to the careful examinations made by Koch of
fresh and stained malarial blood preparations.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—Geographical distribution of malaria.]
In 1894 Manson formulated the hypothesis of the mosquito
transmission of malaria. He based this upon the fact that the
flagellation of the male gamete does not take place for several
minutes after the removal of the blood from the peripheral
circulation. He also suggested that larvae might feed upon infected
mosquitoes dying upon the water and thus acquire the disease.
Ross for two years had mosquitoes feed upon the blood of malarial
patients which contained crescents but as he used insects of the
genera _Culex_ and _Stegomyia_ he failed to observe development
in the tissues of the mosquitoes. In 1897 he used 8 dappled-wing
mosquitoes (Anopheline) and in two of these, upon dissection, he
noted pigmentary bodies different from anything he had observed in
hundreds of dissections of other mosquitoes. At this time he was
forced to discontinue this work for about six months.
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