MALARIA.' 

 By George M. Sternberg, M. D., LL. I).. 



Surgeon-General United Slates Army. 



In 1113^ address as president of the Biological Society, in 1S96, the 

 subject chosen was "The malarial parasite and other pathouenic proto- 

 zoa." This address was published in March, 1897, in the Popular 

 Science Monthly, and I must refer you to this illustrated paper for a 

 detailed account of the morpholooical characters of the malarial para- 

 site. It is my intention at the present time to speak of ''malaria" in 

 a more general way, and of the recent experimental evidence in sup- 

 port of Manson's suggestion, first made in 1894, that the mosquito 

 serves as an intermediate host for the parasite. The discovery of this 

 parasite may justly be considered one of the greatest achievements of 

 scientific research during the nineteenth centur3^ Twenty-five 3'ears 

 ago the best-informed physicians entertained erroneous ideas with 

 reference to the nature of malaria and the etiology of the malarial 

 fevers. Observation had taught them that there was something in the 

 air in the vicinity of marshes in tropical regions, and during the sum- 

 mer and autumn in semitropical and temperate regions, which gave 

 rise to periodic fevers in those exposed in such localities, and the usual 

 inference was that this something was of gaseous form — that it waa a 

 special kind of bad air generated in swampy localities under favorable 

 meteorological conditions. It was recognized at the same time that 

 there are other kinds of bad air, such as the offensive emanations from 

 sewers and the products of respiration of man and animals, but the 

 term malaria was reserved especially for the kind of bad air which 

 was supposed to give rise to the so-called malarial fevers. In the light 

 of our present knowledge it is evident that this term is a misnomer. 

 There is no good reason for believing that the air of swamps is any 

 more deleterious to those who breathe it than the air of the seacoast 

 or that in the vicinity of inland lakes and ponds. Moreover, the stag- 

 nant pools Avhich are covered with a "green scum," and from which 

 bubl)les of gas are given off, have lost all terrors for the well-inf ormed 



1 Annual address of the president of the Philosophical Society of Washington. 

 Delivered under the auspices of the Washington Academy of Sciences, on December 

 8 1900 Printed in Popular Science Monthly, February, 1901 

 ' 645 



