THE J^TTOLOGY OF MALARIAL DISEASES. 429 



On the Question of Priority with Regard to 

 certain Discoveries upon the -Etiology of 

 Malarial Diseases. 



By 



Oeoi'ge H. F. WiUtall, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., 



University Lecturer in Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine, Cambridge. 



Though it has long been a popular belief in certain countries 

 that malaria is communicated to man by means of mosquitoes, 

 experimental proof was lacking until a recent date. The 

 history of the mosquito-malaria theory has been amply dis- 

 cussed elsewhere by the writer, to whose papers the reader 

 is also referred for a detailed description of the experimental 

 work on the part played by mosquitoes in the propagation of 

 malarial diseases.^ It is not the object of this paper to 

 discuss these matters in detail. 



Persons who read the medical literature of but one country 

 will naturally become biassed in their judgment. This ac- 

 counts for the fact that at present different investigators 

 receive the credit of having definitely established the part 

 played by mosquitoes in malarial diseases. In view of the 

 confusion which will naturally result from the claims made 



1 Nuttall, G. H. F. (1899-1900). I. " On the Role of Insects, Arachnids, 

 and Myriapods as Carriers in the Spread of Bacterial and Parasitic Diseases 

 of Man and Animals: a critical and historical Study;" 'Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital Reports/ vol. viii, pp. 1—154, 3 plates (Bibliographj). II. " Die 

 MosquitoMalaria-Theorie," ' Centralbl. f. Bakteriologie,' vol. xxv, pp. 162— 

 170, 209—216, 245—247, 285—296, 337-346 ^Bibliography). III. 

 " Neuere Forschungen iiber die Rolle der Mosquitos bei der Verbreitung der 

 Malaria : ZusammenfassendesReferat ;" ' Centralbl. f. Bakteriologie,' vol. xxvi, 

 pp. 140—147, and vol. xxvii, pp. 193—196, 218—225, 260-264, 328-340 

 (exhaustive Bibliography). 



