On Micro-organisms from Ice t &e. By Br. Maddox. 457 



The necessity for a certain amount of the poisonous material 

 to be introduced or acquired in the system to produce on the one 

 hand immunity, or on the other hand fatal effects, — the alteration 

 some undergo by exposure to air, — the re-acquirement of highly 

 virulent properties after having had them lessened by culture, may, 

 perhaps, point to the very variable results exhibited in contagious 

 maladies, and malarial fevers, under similar exposures ; some 

 receiving the contagium, so to speak, at its first offer, others 

 resisting for lengthened periods. 



In the case of malarial fevers there are some points that furnish 

 material for future study. I will mention an instructive case that 

 came under my notice many years since. In the neighbourhood 

 of Constantinople, and especially at the Dardanelles, malaria was 

 endemic. Assuming malarial fever to be consequent upon the 

 introduction into the system of the Bacillus malarias of Klebs 

 and Tomassi-Crudelli, this point for inquiry arose. A sailor had 

 had at one of the ports in the East Indies a first and severe 

 attack of intermittent fever, from which he speedily recovered, 

 and remained free from any recurrence for thirteen years, 

 although visiting various localities where such fevers were common ; 

 yet the same night that his vessel anchored, during the day, in the 

 Golden Horn, he was seized with a severe attack of malarial fever, 

 which necessitated his entry into the hospital. None of the officers 

 or crew suffered similarly, though remaining many days at anchor. 

 Are we to suppose the germs of the former malady remained 

 quiescent in the system for the period of thirteen years, and that 

 a few hours in a suitable locality sufficed to set them into activity 

 and develope a return of the ague ; or was he an individual very 

 susceptible to malaria ? I scarcely think so, as he was free at 

 other ports where the malady was common. Again, should the 

 second attack be supposed as unrelated to the first, under the 

 assumption that he in some way imbibed the malaria in passing 

 the Dardanelles, and that the incubation took three or four days 

 to develop itself, or was it that out of all the places he had visited 

 in the course of his voyages for thirteen years, this locality was the 

 only one to furnish the necessary conditions for a return of 

 the original malady, he being previously in good health ? 



In the malignant form, in the neighbourhood of the Darda- 

 nelles, I have known individuals die in the cold stage within sixteen 

 hours. Had such imbibed a really toxic quantity of the malarial 

 poison — I am expressly assuming the correctness of the Bacillus 

 malarias theory, which Dr. Sternberg, U.S.A., finds reason to doubt 

 — and did the organisms multiply in such a short period throughout 

 the system or in some vital organ as to thus speedily terminate life 

 without any reaction, under every effort that time permitted ? 



Mr. E. L. Moss, Staff-Surgeon K.N., found, after forty- eight 



