242 MEDICINE 



of nature, sometimes maleficent, often beneficial. 

 At first our attention was turned wholly to vegetable 

 cells and chiefly to bacteria. We had to wait longer 

 before learning that minute organisms belonging 

 rather to the animal kingdom are scarcely less 

 intrusive in the scheme of things, and that a whole 

 group of diseases is due to parasitic protozoa. The 

 story of the development of our knowledge con- 

 cerning such diseases is even more fascinating than 

 the history of bacteriology, and tells of another 

 triumph for the method of experiment. 



Think of the ague fit, the objective symptom 

 of malaria. Known to ancient Greece, painfully 

 familiar to Rome; familiar throughout Europe in 

 the middle ages ; familiar indeed in our own country 

 before its fens and marshes were drained. In illus- 

 tration of its familiarity in England we may recall 

 the account of FalstafFs symptoms given by the 

 Hostess in Shakespeare's Henry V, "Ah ! poor heart. 

 He is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian that 

 it is most lamentable to behold." Here clearly was 

 a point for the gallery, and Shakespeare must have 

 felt sure of the gallery's acquaintance even with 

 the medical terms used (or misused) concerning 

 ague. To Britons as empire builders tropical malaria 

 has always been a menace and a hindrance. For 

 centuries it has been under the eye of the physician ; 

 even classical authors, from Hippocrates to Celsus, 

 displaying remarkable knowledge of its clinical 

 features. Millions have suffered from it throughout 



