312 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1052 



bacteria in a mixed culture composed of 

 brine, and the persistence of cocci and 

 torulEB; food by the feeding of ameba bac- 

 terially or acetic organisms with alcohol; 

 reaction by the development of the lactic 

 organisms in milk and the eradication of its 

 associates; temperature by a combination 

 in the growth of tubercle bacilli with 

 saprophytes which will not grow at mod- 

 erate temperature. Those fundamental bio- 

 logical requirements favor some forms of 

 life association, while antagonizing others. 

 Taken in conjunction with metabolic prod- 

 ucts as alcohol, lactic acid, acetic acid, 

 amino-acids, ammonium, toxins and the 

 many others that are possible, these bio- 

 logical factors offer a wide range of asso- 

 ciation, and at the same time determine 

 the limitations. 



Our experiences support these views, for 

 involution forms or distorted morphology 

 is easily traceable to one or more factors 

 mentioned, and in the functioning processes 

 of microorganisms how easy it is to alter 

 the metabolic products and even the form 

 by the addition or omission of an element. 

 These acts have become an unconscious pro- 

 cedure and we do not, as a rule, make the 

 subject one of systematic inquiry. 



The association of animal and animal, or 

 animal and plant, or plant and plant, when 

 carried to comparatively loose social rela- 

 tions will in large part support this inter- 

 pretation of these more intimate associa- 

 tions, illustrated through the channel of 

 microorganisms. Animal life becomes ad- 

 justed to certain plants or other animal 

 life, and is dependent upon their existence ; 

 plants depend upon animals and other 

 plants ; into which social relations enter the 

 factors of food, temperature, and the other 

 life conditions which apply to all living 

 forms. Since this seems a fact so well 

 established, and our work as microbiologists 

 leads into the affairs of so many organisms 



which instigate numerous diverse changes — 

 changes in some instances which are insti- 

 tuted by assoeiational growth and which 

 may affect their morphology, culture and 

 physiology — it is pertinent in our researches 

 to consider an organism in its natural mi- 

 crobial associations as significant as in a 

 laboratory pure culture. Such factors 

 should be directive for purposes of identi- 

 fication, study and application, since they 

 suggest those possibilities which may be 

 bound up in the intra- and inter-molecular 

 relationships and reactions that dominate 

 associations and individuals. 



Chaeles E. Marshall 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, 

 Amheest, Mass. 



DS. A. F. A. KING ON MOSQUITOES AND 

 MALARIA^ 



Much as I might wish to write of Dr. King 

 as a personal friend, as a great teacher, as a 

 big, broad, warm-hearted human, in all of 

 which roles I knew him weU, it has seemed 

 best to your committee that I should confine 

 my consideration to the single episode in the 

 career of this many-sided man which relates 

 to mosquitoes a^nld malaria. 



Dr. King was a deep thinker. He was not 

 satisfied with even the generally accepted and 

 apparently well founded views of men of sci- 

 ence and of his own profession without a 

 careful consideration and an ingenious twist- 

 ing and testing of argument. This quality of 

 mind he showed in a marked degree during 

 the years 1881 and 1882 when he was filled 

 with the thoughts of malaria and its probable 

 origin and transmission. He never told me 

 how or when the idea came to him that mos- 

 quitoes were transmitters of this disease. 

 His search of the literature probably fol- 

 lowed a fairly well worked out argument orig- 

 inating in his own mind. Surely he consid- 

 ered the idea as original when he came, prob- 

 ably late in 1881, to the laboratory of the late 



1 Read at the memorial meeting for Dr. A. F. A. 

 King of the Medical Society of the District of Co- 

 lumbia, Washington, January 20, 1915. 



