JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL MICROSCOPICA.L SOCIETY, 



SEPTEMBER, 1910. 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



YI. — Tropical Diseases due to Microscopic Organisms in 



the Balkanic Zone. 



By Aldo Castellani, M.D., M.R.C.P., Lieut.-Colonel Italian 

 Medical Service (Naval Branch), Member of Permanent 

 Committee, Inter- Allied Sanitary Commission. 



{Read December 18, 1918.) 

 One Plate. 



I. — Malaria. 



Of the diseases to which the Allied troops have been exposed in 

 the Balkans, malaria is by far the most common and the most 

 important. The number of cases of malaria throughout the 

 Adriatic and Balkanic Zones during the years 1915-1917 has 

 been appalling, and the cases of pernicious type quite common. 

 Malaria has been the disease which has caused by far most 

 invaliding among the Allied troops. 



Unfortunately during recent years there arose in certain 

 quarters in Europe, and even in tropical countries, a tendency to 

 consider malaria as a not very dangerous disease. The recent 

 experience in the Balkans, therefore, has come as a rude awaken- 

 ing, and has shown what a terrible scourge this disease can be. 



The experience in Serbia, Macedonia, and the Adriatic Zone, 

 in addition to showing the frequency and gravity of this malady, 

 has also shown us what a protean disease it is. This of course is 

 nothing new to the old tropical practitioner, but to the young 

 medical man just out from home it is decidedly bewildering. It 

 is especially on these protean features of the malarial infection, on 

 what might be called mimicry, that I should like to say a few 

 words. Malaria may simulate a stupendous number of different 

 diseases. 



