634 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been traced by Golgi and others, and results in the formation of 

 a number of bodies arranged in the form of a rosette, with a mass 

 of pigment granules at the center (see Fig. 2). The growth of 

 the Plasmodium seems to be at the expense of the haemoglobin of 



\ 



9 e^ 



10 



Fig. 2. Intraoorpuscular Pevelopment of the Parasite of Tertian Intermittent 

 Fever : 1, 2, young hyaline forms ; 3, 4, more advanced pigmented forms ; 5, fully grown 

 parasite ; 6, 7, 8, 9, segmentation and production of free spores (10). 



the infected red blood- corpuscle, and the pigment granules are 

 probably to be regarded as an excrementitious product. The seg- 

 ments of the rosette, which represents the final stage of intra- 

 corpuscular development, are finally set free by a breaking down 

 of the remains of the corpuscle, and are supposed to correspond 

 with the elementary body which invaded the corpuscle in the first 

 instance. The periodicity of this class of fevers is believed to 

 depend upon the fact that a certain time is required for the intra- 

 corpuscular development of the plasmodium, and that successive 

 crops of these elementary bodies are set free at regular intervals. 

 We have also in the blood of malarial-fever patients certain pig- 

 mented bodies which are believed to represent different stages in 

 the development of the same parasite, or of a nearly related par- 

 asite, which is concerned in the aetiology of a different type of 

 malarial fever. The form most frequently encountered is associ- 

 ated with the so-called "sestivo- autumnal" malarial fevers which 

 prevail in the vicinity of Rome and elsewhere. The bodies char- 

 acteristic of this type of fever are crescentic in form and contain 

 black pigment granules, usually centrally located (see Fig. 3). 

 These crescentic bodies are not usually found in the blood of per- 

 sons suffering from intermittent fever of the tertian or quartan 

 type. Golgi, who has made very extended studies of the blood 

 of malarial patients, asserts that each intermittent paroxysm is 

 associated with the segmentation of a group of intracorpuscular 

 organisms that is to say, that the paroxysm corresponds with the 



