173 



| 



I musl take it for granted that the disease in the beginning and in the middle of the 

 nineteenth century really was a true malaria, mainly benign, but partly pernicious. 

 When however we read these reports on the old malaria epidemics we are, in my 

 opinion, almost forced to direct our attention to several points which seem in- 

 compatible with our recent knowledge of the disease and its manner of infection. 

 This especially holds good with regard to the extreme rapidity with which these 

 old malaria epidemics by all accounts set in. When we hear that Schaudin in St. 

 Leme in malaria affected houses only found from 5 to 16 per cent, of the Anopheles- 

 material affected, and that in Macedonia, a country which is infected to a very high 

 degree with malaria, only 2 per cent, of the Anophelin material (Martini 1920 4 p. 72) 

 is said to he infected, how is this compatible with the old reports that, as by a 

 flash of lightning, several hundreds were attacked in all directions in the same 

 parish and that whole crowds of working men in the fields suddenly dropped down 

 sick to the ground. This in the first place presupposes myriads of clouds of infected 

 Anophelines, and we may be permitted to ask from where these infected clouds 

 suddenly came; further this suddenness is dependent on a remarkable simultane- 

 ousness in the attack which must have occurred before those meteorological phenomena 

 (dense fog etc.) which are often tacitly regarded as partly responsible for the outbreak. 



As however I have never seen any criticism of all these records of the old 

 malaria epidemics, it is only with the greatest hesitation that I write the above 

 lines. As matters now stand we are forced to regard all these accounts as really 

 relating to malaria, leaving it to future research to add to this criticism or show it 

 to be unnecessary. 



If now we take it for granted that the old epidemics were true malaria, we 

 are also forced to take it for granted that, as it is stated about the disease nowa- 

 days so in former days, too, it can only have been transmitted by means 

 of mosquitoes; without having recourse to strict arguments of any kind it must 

 be admitted that at the present standpoint of science this is the only correel 

 point of view to set forth. It is one of the few cases in the kingdom of science in 

 which the old word: blessed are ye who do not sec and yet believe, is in accor- 

 dance with the true spirit of science. If this is right, it must also be admitted that 

 the sole mosquito which has been able to bring disease or death to so 

 many people almost a century ago can only have been A. maculipennis. At 

 the present time we have only three Anophelines north of the Alps, of which A. 

 nigripes does not come into consideration as a Plasmodium carrier, while A. bifur- 

 cates as such is to a very high degree subordinate in significance to .4. maculipen- 

 nis. We are either forced to suppose that the malaria was transmitted by .4. maculi- 

 pennis a century ago or to accept a scientific absurdity e. g. thai a century ago we 

 possessed species north of the Alps which at that time transferred malaria, hut 

 which have now disappeared. 



These considerations being correct the great question arises: Why has A. 

 maculipennis in our country only three generations ago transferred mala- 



