186 THE AMEEICAN MONTHLY [August, 



lus of all claims to a pathogenic character, Klebs himself has at last 

 disowned his fondling, and Marchiafava and others have gone over to 

 the other side. 



Laveran's conclusions have been supported and vindicated by the ob- 

 servations and experiments of Marchiafava, Celli, and Colgi in Italy, 

 Metschnikof, Czenzinski, and Sachrof in Russia, Sternberg, Council- 

 man, and Osier in America, and of Laveran himself in Corsica, Tonkin, 

 Madagascar, and Senegal, whose combined experience has established 

 its claims almost beyond question, though Dujardin, Pfeiffer, Rosen- 

 stein, and HofI'mann have alleged that Plasmodium is present in the 

 blood in other febrile conditions, as typhoid, scarlatina, and vaccinia, 

 and that it is therefore to be looked on rather as a modification of some 

 of the normal elements. 



Fischer, of Kiel, examined the blood of eighty subjects of malaria 

 from the Cameroons, West Indies, etc., and Schellong that of a large 

 number of patients in New Guinea, and, since his return to Germany, 

 of cases of recurrent attacks, with none but negative results. It must, 

 however, be borne in mind that the value of negative evidence is at a 

 minimum when the object of the search is new, and only to be detected 

 by special methods of examination and staining, demanding much tech- 

 nical skill and practice. 



Dr. Plehn, after nine months' preparation as assistant in the Hygienic 

 Institute at the University of Jena, began his observations at the Moabit 

 Hospital in Berlin on three cases of typical intermittent fever in which 

 the several stages were well marked, the temperature reaching a maxi- 

 mum of 41° C. (105. 8° F.), and respectively of the quartan, tertian, and 

 quotidian forms — the last, however, subsequently passing into the ter- 

 tian. The two former, from Hamburg and Posen, gave negative 

 results, but he was successful in the case of the last, a laborer from Pots- 

 dam, who had suffered for two months from severe quotidian ague, for 

 which he had had no medical treatment, having been refused admission 

 to the hospital there from want of room. It is worthy of notice that 

 after this man had been treated with large doses of quinine, and the quo- 

 tidian had been succeeded by the tertian form, the plasmodia rapidly 

 decreased in numbers and soon disappeared entirely. This may ac- 

 count for the failure of many observers, to say nothing of the paucity of 

 material at the disposal of most compared with the opportunities en- 

 joyed by Italian physicians, among whom Celli and Guarnieri, for in- 

 stance, have treated as many as 2,000 patients in one summer. 



In the Potsdam case Plehn found the plasmodia in abundance in all 

 stages of the disease, but especially during the febrile exacerbations. 

 Only the smaller were colorless, the larger being pigmented by granules 

 and rods of melanin irregularly disposed. For the details of his manipu- 

 lations we must refer to his paper. In a postscript he states that since 

 going to press he has also found the plasmodia in great numbers in the 

 blood of a recuiTent case returned from Sumatra, and that he intended 

 continuing his observations on every opportunity. 



Detection of the Bacillus Tuberculosis. — Prof. John Guiteras 

 gives, in a lecture printed in the American Lancet^ the following di- 

 rections for detecting the bacillus tuberculosis: "The bacillus is not 

 easily stained by anilin dyes, which stain other micro-organisms so 

 easily. To stain, the anilin must be mixed with an alkali. After taking 



