312 POPULAR SCIENCE MONT ELY. 



these two bodies to the life of the parasite? Their nature and pur- 

 pose do not receive any illumination from Golgi's theory. You will 

 find in all forms of malarial infection, if you look enough, the flagel- 

 lated body; but, strange to say, you will not find it in malarial blood 

 immediately after it is withdrawn from the body. It is only after an 

 interval of minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, after the blood is 

 withdrawn that these flagellated bodies appear. Whence do they come? 

 If you make a preparation of malarial blood from a patient by prick- 

 ing the finger and spreading a little of the blood on a slide, fixing it 

 immediately with heat or alcohol and staining it, you will never see 

 any of these flagellated organisms. But if the slip be kept moist and 

 in a warm temperature for half an hour and then stained, the flagellated 

 bodies will be seen, proving that they develop only after the escape 

 of the parasite from the human body. Such a fact is very interesting 

 and obviously has some significance in connection with the life of the 

 parasite. Whence, I ask, come these flagellated bodies? If one of 

 the crescent-shaped bodies is observed continuously, the following 

 changes of shape may often be observed: It becomes shorter, loses 

 its crescent shape and gives off flagella, which may break off and swim 

 about by themselves. When they come in contact with a blood cor- 

 puscle they straighten themselves out and indulge in a peculiar vibra- 

 tory movement, as if endeavoring to penetrate the corpuscle. 



Many years ago King, in America, and others too numerous to 

 mention suspected that the mosquito had something to do with malaria, 

 but in what way they could not say. Not only civilized observers had 

 this suspicion, but the savage natives of certain tropical countries had 

 the same idea. Koch tells us that certain natives of German East 

 Africa who lived in a mountainous, and therefore non-malarial, part 

 noticed that when they descended to the malarial regions on the coast 

 they acquired a fever which they called mibu.' They said that 

 they were bitten there by certain insects which they also called 'mbu' 

 — mosquito or gnat. They give the same name to the mosquito and 

 to the fever, therefore obviously these savages associate the insect and 

 the fever as cause and effect. Peasants in certain parts of Italy have 

 the same idea, believing that the bite of the mosquito may be followed 

 by the development of malarial fever. 



Laveran, some years ago, in one of his numerous works on malarial 

 fever, said that possibly the malarial parasite was cared for by the 

 mosquito in the same way that the latter cares for the filaria of the 

 blood. He did not, however, formulate a definite theory on the 

 subject. 



In 1894 I was engaged in working at malaria, following out Golgi's 

 work and that of other Italians. I was particularly struck by the 

 phenomena of exflagellation and more particularly by the fact that it 



