06 PROTOZOA 



CHAP. 



amoeba, sending it to England, where it was made to bite Dr. 

 Manson's son, who had never had fever and whose blood on 

 repeated examination had proved free from any germs. In the 

 usual time he had a well-defined attack of the fever corresponding 

 to that germ, and his blood on examination revealed the 

 Haemamoeba of the proper type. A few doses of quinine 

 relieved him of the consequences of his mild martyrdom to 

 science. Experiments of similar character but of less rigorous 

 nature had been previously made in Italy with analogous results. 

 Again, it has been shown that by mere precautions against the 

 bitss of Anopheles, and these only, all residents who adopted 

 them during the malarious season in the most unhealthy districts 

 of Italy escaped fever during a whole season ; while those who 

 did not adopt the precautions were badly attacked. 1 



Anopheles flourishes in shallow puddles, or small vessels such 

 as tins, etc., the pools left by dried-up brooks and torrents, as 

 well as larger masses of stagnant water, canals, and slow-flowing 

 streams. Sticklebacks and minnows feed freely on the larvae 

 and keep down the numbers of the species ; where the fish 

 are not found, the larvae may be destroyed by pouring paraffin oil 

 on the surface of the water and by drainage. A combination 

 of protective measures in Freetown (Sierra Leone) and other 

 ports on the west coast of Africa, Ismailia, and elsewhere, has met 

 with remarkable success during the short time for which it has 

 been tried ; and it seems not improbable, that as the relatively 

 benign intermittent fevers have within the last century been 

 banished from our own fen and marsh districts, so the Guinea 

 coast may within the next decade lose its sad title of " The White 

 Man's Grave." 



So closely allied to this group in form, habit, and life-cycle 

 are some species of the Flagellate genus Trypanosoma, that in 

 their less active states they have been unhesitatingly placed here 

 (see p. 119). Schaudinn has seen Trypanosomic characters in 

 the " blasts " of this group, which apparently is the most primi- 

 tive of the Sporozoa and a direct offshoot of the Flagellates. 



The Myxosporidiaceae (Fig. 36) are parasitic in various 



1 It would seem that resting-cells, i.e. the crescents and corresponding spheres, 

 of Laverania and Haemamoeba may linger during months of apparent health in 

 the spleen and red marrow of the bones ; and that these by parthenogenesis produce 

 sporozoites and determine relapses when, owing to a lowering of the general health, 

 conditions favourable to new sporulation occur. 



