The Story of Germ LifeConn, H. W. (Herbert William)
Science
The Story of Germ Life
Conn, H. W. (Herbert William)
Bacteria; Bacteriology
There appears to be more than one variety of the malarial
organism, the different types differing in the length of time it
takes for their growth and sporulation. There is one variety, the
most common one, which requires two days for its growth, thus
giving rise to the paroxysm of the disease about once in forty-
eight hours; another variety appears to require three days for its
growth; while still another variety appears to be decidedly
irregular in its period of growth and sporulation. These facts
readily explain some of the variations in the disease. Certain
other irregularities appear to be due to a different cause. More
than one brood of parasites may be in the blood of the individual
at the same time, one producing sporulation at one time and
another at a different time. Such a simultaneous growth of two
independent broods may plainly produce almost any kind of
modification in the regularity of the disease.
The malarial organism appears to be very sensitive to quinine, a
very small quantity being sufficient to kill it. Upon this point
depends the value of quinine as a medicine. If the drug be present
in the blood at the time when the spores are set free from the
blood-corpuscle, they are rapidly killed by it before they have a
chance to enter another corpuscle. During their growth in the
corpuscle they are far less sensitive to quinine than when they
exist in the free condition as spores, and at this time the drug
has little effect.
The malarial organism is an animal, and can not be cultivated in
the laboratory by any artificial method yet devised. Its whole
history is therefore not known. It doubtless has some home outside
the blood of animals, and very likely it may pass through other
stages of a metamorphosis in the bodies of other animals. Most
parasitic animals have two or more hosts upon which they live,
alternating from one to the other, and that such is the case with
the malarial parasite is at least probable. But as yet
bacteriologists have been unable to discover anything very
definite in regard to the matter. Until we can learn something in
regard to its life outside the blood of man we can do little in
the way of devising methods to avoid it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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