SEPTEMBER 7, 1899 | 
NAT 
ORE 439 
while heavier rain will be prevalent in the north-west. | 
It will be interesting to compare this prediction with 
actual results; but at present we are more concerned 
to point out the care that .s taken in preparing the fore- 
cast, the difficulty in the collection of exact data, and the 
manful determination to make the best use of all available 
sources. 
This scrupulous care is well illustrated in the second 
class of information incorporated into the weather pre- 
diction, and which rests on the abnormal features of the 
recent meteorology of India. To discuss these with any 
prospect of success, it is first necessary to determine 
correct normals. The work that this involves can only 
be appreciated by those who have been actually concerned 
in a similar inquiry, but it is a method of investigation 
into which Mr. Eliot and his predecessor, Mr. Blandford, 
have thrown themselves with signal success. The volumes 
of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs bear witness to 
the ability and zeal with which the work has been carried 
on throughout some twenty-five selected observatories. 
We may well express the hope that so much work is now 
yielding abundant fruit. 
THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE INVES- 
TIGATION OF THE MALARIAL PARASITE. 
“HE ~+éle played by the mosquito as a carrying 
agent of the malarial parasite from man to man 
seems to be restricted to one genus, the Anopheles. 
Major Ross, of the Liverpool School of Tropical 
Diseases, in a telegram from Sierra Leone, announces 
the fact that he has found the Anopheles there, and that 
it may be the intermediary host of the quartan malarial 
fever. 
Many observers in different countries, noticing the 
fact that malaria is most prevalent at the most active 
period of mosquito life, have attributed malaria to the 
agency of this insect. Dr. Patrick Manson, in 1894, first 
brought the subject forward in England, and, acting on 
his suggestion and advice, Major Ross undertook an 
investigation in India. 
In 1897, by using.two species of Anopheles, Ross 
traced the malarial parasite into the wall of the stomach 
of the mosquito after it had fed on patients whose blood 
contained the crescentic gametocytes ; the next year he 
succeeded in tracing the complete life-history of the 
proteosoma Grassit Labbé of sparrows, and showed that 
its intermediary host was one particular kind of mosquito, 
the Culex pipiens. The gametocytes contained in the 
red blood corpuscles of the vertebrate host pass with the 
blood into the stomach of the mosquito, and passing 
through the stomach-wall bulge into the body-cavity ; 
here a sexual process takes place, zygotoblasts are 
eventually formed, which pass into the insects’ blood, 
and finally find their way into the salivary gland and to 
the duct leading from this to the extremity of the stylet; 
from here they escape into the blood of the vertebrate 
host when the insect bites. A full account of the process 
is given by Ross in NATURE of August 3. 
Following on these results, Grassi in Italy attacked 
the problem from another point of view ; he studied the 
mosquitoes prevalent in the different parts of the country 
where malaria occurs. The results were interesting. 
He found there was no indigenous malaria where the 
Culex pipiens was common, but it did occur where 
the large mosquito Anopheles was found. 
Bignami and Bastianelli, who had been trying unsuc- 
cessfully to infect a man by allowing mosquitoes to bite 
him, attributing their want of success to the use of the 
wrong kind of mosquito, and, acting on the observations 
of Grassi, tried again with some mosquitoes imported from 
a malarious district. This time they succeeded in infect- 
ing the man with malaria of the same type that prevailed | 
in the district from which the mosquitoes came. More- | 
NO. 1558, VOL. 60] 
over, they have shown that the development of the human 
form of parasite in the body of Anopheles is identical 
with the development of the proteosoma of birds in Cz/ex 
pipiens, as observed by Ross. 
According to these observers, the species Azopheles 
claviger is the most common intermediary host of the 
parasite of malaria in Italy, the tertian and summer- 
autumn types. 
It is evident that the next step in the study of malaria 
should be to hunt for the different species of Anopheles 
and see if these are the intermediary hosts of the 
different types of malaria throughout the world, and what 
particular species is most concerned in transferring the 
parasite from man to man. Grassi has done this for 
Italy, and now we hear that Ross has found a species of 
Anopheles to be concerned in the transference of quartan 
fever ; thus all the types of malarial fever are now re- 
ferred to the Anopheles as their intermediary host. His 
full report on return from Africa will be read with 
interest. 
Whether the Anopheles can be extirpated from a 
locality, and by what means, will be the problem for 
scientific workers resident abroad to settle ; fortunately 
they seem to be confined to small areas, so the suggestion 
of Ross to draw off the water from stagnant pools may 
not be so hopeless a task as it would at first appear. 
NOTES. 
THE following men of science have been elected fellows of the 
Reale Accademia dei Lincei. As ordinary fellows: for mathe- 
matics, P. Tardy, G. Veronese; for mechanical science, G. 
Favero, G. Colombo, V. Volterra ; for agricultural science, A. 
Targioni-Tozzetti. As corresponding fellows: for mathematics, 
G. Ricci; for mechanics, G. A. Maggi ; for physics, G. Grassi, 
A. Battelli; for crystallography and mineralogy, A. D’Achiardi ; 
for botany, F. Delpino ; for agriculture, A. Borzi; for patho- 
logy, E. Marchiafava. As foreign fellows: for mathematics, G. 
Mittag-Leffler, J. Weingarten; for physics, E. Mascart, W. 
Kohlrausch ; for chemistry, Ludwig Mond, E. Fischer ; for crys- 
tallography and mineralogy, C. Klein, F. Fouque, F. Zirkel ; for 
geology and paleontology, O. Torell, A. De Lapparent, R. 
Lepsius ; for botany, W. Pfeffer; for zoology and morphology, 
E. Haeckel, E. van Beneden ; for physiology, E. Pfliiger, E. 
Hering. 
THE Berlin correspondent of the Z%mes reports that the 
Imperial Government has ordered Prof. Kossel, of the Board 
of Health, to proceed to Lisbon and Oporto to study the plague 
and the methods adopted to combat it. Prof. Kossel will be 
accompanied by Prof. Frosch, of the Berlin Institute, for the 
Study of Infectious Diseases, who is being despatched on the 
same mission by the Prussian Government. Drs. Calmette and 
Salinbeni are already investigating the outbreak, and will report 
upon it to the Paris Pasteur Institute. 
PRINCE KROPOTKIN sends us a note which suggests that the 
movements of sea-gulls along the British coasts may indi- 
cate forthcoming weather changes. On Saturday, August 26, 
while off Broadstairs, he noticed several flocks of gulls flying 
along the coast towards Dover. The wind was then blowing 
from the north-east, as it had been doing throughout August, 
and there was little indication of a change; but an old fisher- 
man remarked that the gulls which had stayed on the coast at 
Margate and to the west of it were moving to the south coast 
to meet a south-west wind, which was sure to come. As is 
known, the change occurred on the following day, and the wind 
veered round to the south-west.° In connection with this ob- 
servation, it is worth remark that Mr. Inwards, in his 
‘* Weather Lore,” says: ‘‘ The arrival of sea-gulls from the 
Solway Firth to Holywood, Dumfriesshire, is generally followed 
by a high wind and heavy rain from the south-west.” 
