40 DISCOVERY OF THE PARASITE OF MALARIA 



perthiiy imagined that the marsh mosquito absorbed 

 some telUiric poison derived from decaying animal or 

 vegetable matter, and in its bite communicated this 

 poison to man. Laveran's discovery showed at once 

 that the virus was not a poison or ptomaine such as 

 would be obtained from decaying matter, but was 

 indeed a comparatively highly organised living body, 

 actively motile, at certain stages in the blood. Then 

 the great question arose in men's minds, how did 

 Laveran's parasite get into the blood ? JNIy colleague 

 — Professor jMajor Ross — answered tlie question, and 

 we can with truth say that, side by side with the 

 discovery of the bacterial origin of the infective 

 diseases by Pasteur, this will remain one of the 

 epoch-making discoveries in medical science, which 

 will prevent an immense amount of suffering through 

 sickness and death and will advance civilisation and 

 commerce in hitherto almost inaccessible regions in 

 a manner previously undreamt of. The discovery M^as 

 only made in 181)7, and consisted in Ross being able 

 to infect certain mosquitos, the Aiiophcl'uuv, with the 

 malarial parasite. ^Vnd then, as if by magic, the true 

 story of malarial infection, about which countless 

 books had been written containing an equal number 

 of hypotheses, theories, warnings, and surmises, was 

 made as clear as daylight. A water-breeding mosquito 

 sucked, not decomposed vegetable or animal matter 

 at the marsh, but the blood of a man suffering from 

 malaria, and in which there were parasites in abundance. 

 The parasites sucked in witli the meal of blood 

 underwent further development iii the mosquito, ?,<?, 



