THE MALARIAL PARASITE. 631 



fluids containing the bacillus in question, and wasliings from ma- 

 larious soils, were injected subcutaneously. 



In my work on Malaria and Malarial Diseases, already referred 

 to (published in 1884), I say : 



" The importance of this alleged discovery induced the National 

 Board of Health, soon after the publication of the first report pub- 

 lished by Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli, to undertake control ex- 

 periments in a recognized malarial locality in this country. The 

 writer, who had established a laboratory in New Orleans for the 

 purpose of studying the micro-organisms present in the atmos- 

 phere of that city, was therefore instructed to repeat the experi- 

 ments of Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli, and during the autumn of 

 1880 devoted a considerable portion of his time to this investiga- 

 tion. The results obtained were not favorable to the view that 

 the fever produced in rabbits by the injection beneath their skin 

 of infusions of swamp mud, etc., was a truly malarial fever ; and, 

 for reasons stated, the conclusion was reached that the evidence 

 offered by Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli in their first report, which 

 alone had been published at this time, was unsatisfactory. (The 

 full report of these investigations is given in Supplement No. 14, 

 National Board of Health Bulletin, published in Washington, 

 D. C, July 23, 1881.)" 



Referring to subsequent observations, I remark : 



" Since the publication of the report above referred to the 

 belief that the Bacillus malarice, is the true cause of malarial 

 fevers has received considerable support from observations made 

 in Rome, under the direction of Tommasi-Crudeli, by Marchia- 

 fava, Cuboni, Peroncito, Ceri, and others. 



" We do not feel prepared to estimate the value of this evi- 

 dence in detail, but will, in a general way, give our reasons for 

 considering it in a spirit of scientific skepticism, and for demand- 

 ing substantial confirmation from other parts of the world where 

 malarial fevers prevail, and especially in our own country, where 

 malaria is so well known by its effects, and where the Bacilhis 

 nialarice. should be easily found if it is constantly present in the 

 blood during the cold stage of intermittents, as has been claimed 

 by some of the Roman observers. . . . 



" The writer's observations lead him to be very cautious in 

 accepting evidence relating to the discovery of organisms in the 

 blood, when these are few in number and require diligent search 

 for their demonstration; for the possibilities of accidental con- 

 tamination or of mistake in observation are very great. . . . 



" The writer has many times examined carefully the blood of 

 malarial-fever patients with a one-eighteenth-inch oil-immersion 

 objective (of Zeiss), and has not been successful in finding either 

 rods or spores. But few of these examinations have, however, 



