TEXT-BOOK OF BACTERIOLOGY. 301 



finger-tips of a malarial patient a drop of blood (by deep puncture 

 with a needle), spreading- it on a cover glass and staining the latter 

 simply with watery methyl-blue, or by adding (according to Celli 

 and Guarnieri) to the fresh, moist preparation methyl-blue dis- 

 solved in blood-serum or ascites fluid, a great number of delicate 

 peculiarities may (according to the statements of the Italian in- 

 vestigators) be noticed in the plasmodia, of which we shall briefly 

 note only the most essential. The elements found in the interior of 

 the red blood-discs are said to be composed of an exterior, more 

 strongly refractive part, more accessible to staining (ektoplasm), \ 

 and an interior, paler part inclosed by the former like a ring (en- 

 toplasm). There are also seen in the latter special structures lying 

 somewhat eccentrically and representing nuclei or nuclear cor- 

 puscles. 



Whenever the plasmodium leaves the first vegetative point 

 (in which it has absorbed the pigment) and enters the second re- 

 productive place i.e., whenever it commences sporulation the body 

 of the parasite changes more or less regularly into a number of 

 new sections. The protoplasm is frequently disintegrated by many 

 intermediate walls disposed in rows and running toward the centre 

 so that star-shaped forms arise. 



Sometimes elongated or spindle-shaped bodies will loom up 

 which, after division, get into the blood-plasma, and are, therefore, 

 also met with outside of the blood-corpuscles. 



The same attitude is observed in another condition of the plas- 

 modia, that of the sickle-shaped structures, which may appear 

 sometimes as cylindrical, sometimes as crescentic, oval, or finally, 

 as Laveran has observed, as completely round, flagellate elements 

 between and along the blood-cells. 



For the time being, it is still an open question in what connection 

 all these diverse things stand one to another, and whether or how 

 they pass into one another. We only mention Golgi's view that the 

 single forms possess direct relations to definite sections in fact, to 

 the entire process of the disease. Golgi thinks that the parasite's 

 process of division exactly coincides with the beginning of the fever 

 or immediately precedes it. The newly-formed micro-organisms 

 then enter other red blood-corpuscles and thus carry on the process 

 by calling forth further fever attacks. It is said that we can pre- 

 dict from the presence of perfectly-developed structures and divi- 

 sion forms the approaching beginning of a paroxysm, and that by 

 observing the various stages of development of the parasite the 

 eventual outbreak of an attack can be defined within a day or two 

 beforehand, and that we can even ascertain whether conditions 



