44 DISCOVERY OF THE PARASITE OF MALARIA 



flies persecuted me at tlieir pleasure as I sat with both 

 hands engaged at tlie instrument. As the year had 

 been ahnost rainless (it was the first year of plague 

 and famine) the heat was almost intolerable, and a 

 punkah could not be used for fear of injuring the 

 delicate dissections. Fortunately my invaluable oil- 

 immersion object-glass remained good. 



" Towards the middle of August I had exhaustively 

 searched numerous grey mosquitos, and a few brindled 

 ones. The results were absolutely negative ; the 

 insects contained nothing whatever. 



He, however, continued dissecting, and finally he 



says : 



" On August 20th I had two remaining insects, 

 both living. Both had been fed on the 16th instant. 

 I had much work to do with other mosquitos, and 

 was not able to attend to these until late in the 

 afternoon, when my sight had become very fatigued. 

 The seventh dappled-winged mosquito was then success- 

 fully dissected. Every cell was searched, and to my 

 intense disappointment nothing whatever was found, 

 until I came to the insect's stomach. Here, however, 

 just as I was about to abandon the examination, I saw 

 a very delicate circular cell, apparently lying amongst 

 the ordinary cells of the organ, and scarcely distinguish- 

 able from them. Almost instinctively I felt that 

 here was something new. On looking fin-ther, another 

 and another similar object presented itself. I now 

 focussed the lens carefully on one of these, and found 

 that it contained a few minute granules of some black 

 substance, exactly like the pigment of the parasite of 

 malaria, I counted altogether twelve of these cells in 



