August 4, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



133 



harmless. They also suggested the new 

 generic name Entamceba for these para- 

 sitic amoebfe, believing that the differences 

 between them and free forms like Amceha 

 proteus are great enough to justify a gen- 

 eric distinction. In this they were followed 

 by Schaudinn in 1903, who succeeded in 

 causing dysentery in cats by feeding them 

 with isolated cysts of the pernicious type 

 which, ignoring the prior specific name 

 diisenterice, he called Entamceha histo- 

 lytica. The harmless type he called Enta- 

 moeba coli and confirmed Casagrandi and 

 Barbagallo by repeated experiments on 

 cats and upon himself. 



Similarly with malaria a few observa- 

 tions were made prior to 1890, but the most 

 valuable work was done after that date. 

 In 1881 Laveran, a French military doc- 

 tor in Algiers, discovered organisms in the 

 blood of malaria victims. He announced 

 them as the cause of malaria tinder the 

 name Oscillaria malarice, this generic name 

 being changed four years later to the more 

 incongruous name of Plasmodium by 

 Marchiafava and Celli. Another impor- 

 tant point was made by Golgi in 1886, in 

 demonstrating that _the characteristic 

 paroxysms of the victim coincide with the 

 simultaneous reproduction of the para- 

 sites. 



It is impossible here, to give the names 

 of the scores of observers who have added 

 some point or other in connection with 

 these parasitic organisms, or to give credit 

 for the first suggestion as to their mode of 

 transmission. After the facts of trans- 

 mission were proved, numerous claimants 

 of the honor of first suggesting the possi- 

 bility of mosquitoes carrying malaria or 

 yellow fever, turned up. Theirs is but an 

 empty honor, however, and I dare say 

 they are entitled to all the glory they can 

 get from proclaiming their clairvoyance 

 from the house tops. "We are, however. 



justified in having no little national pride 

 in the fact that two of our countrymen. 

 Smith and Kilbourne, in 1893 actually 

 proved for the first time the transmission 

 of disease-causing protozoa by blood-suck- 

 ing arthropods. The honor for their dis- 

 coveries and patient observations and ex- 

 periments on Babesia in connection with 

 Texas fever in cattle was not shouted 

 from the ridge pole, but came with the 

 fact that their results were immediately 

 applied to human diseases. To Smith and 

 Kilbourne, then, belong a great part of 

 the credit and honor of paving the way to 

 the present-day control of malaria and 

 sleeping sickness, and the practical extinc- 

 tion of yellow fever in epidemic form. 



The repeated suggestions that mosqui- 

 toes might transmit malaria were bril- 

 liantly proved true by Ross in India in 

 1897-99, and Grassi, Bignami and Bas- 

 tianelli in 1898-99 in Italy. The former 

 showed that bird malaria is transmitted 

 only by species of Culex, the others, that 

 various types of human malaria are trans- 

 mitted solely by species of Anopheles. 

 Stages in development of the parasites in 

 the mosquitoes were made out by Grassi 

 and others, and the last step was taken in 

 the direction of proof by Schaudinn, who, 

 in 1902, watched under the microscope, 

 the penetration of his own blood corpuscles 

 by sporozoites fresh from the proboscis of 

 an infected mosquito. 



The transmission of yellow fever by 

 mosquitoes of the genus Stegomyia was 

 proved in 1900-01 by the American com- 

 mission consisting of Reed, Carroll, Agra- 

 monte and Lazear, and so clearly and 

 minutely was the prophylactic routine 

 worked out, that epidemics of yellow fever 

 are now a matter of history. Should one 

 occur in any civilized community, it would 

 surely indicate ignorance or criminal care-. 

 lessness on the part of the health authori- 



