780 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. i 



formerly called Piroplasma, which are the 

 cause of Texas fever or red-water fever, 

 malignant jaundice, East Coast fever, and 

 biliary fever amongst domestic animals. 

 We know, again, little that is certain con- 

 cerning this group, except that they are 

 unpigmented parasites of the red cor- 

 puscles, and are carried by ticks. They are 

 the most destructive to the blood of any we 

 know. In an ox, I have seen the red cor- 

 puscles decrease from 8,000,000 — the nor- 

 mal — to 56,000 per cubic millimeter in two 

 days. 



Another important group, the LeisJi- 

 mania, is still uncertain of its exact posi- 

 tion. In the body they occur as small 

 bodies with a nucleus and micro-nucleus, 

 but when cultivated on artificial media 

 they become flagellated organisms of a 

 herpetotomas type. It is not quite certain 

 what insect plays the part of carrier, but 

 the different varieties of this group cause 

 the diseases known as Kala Azar or trop- 

 ical splenomegaly, Oriental sore, Delhi boil, 

 Biskra boil, etc., and also infantile splenic 

 anemia. 



The last class are the Hsemogregarines. 

 These are parasites of the red corpuscles 

 of reptiles principally, but they have been 

 described in mammals and birds. We only 

 know certain stages of the greater part of 

 them ; they are large, sausage-shaped bodies, 

 not pigmented, and they are supposed to be 

 carried by leeches, ticks, lice and fleas. 

 They generally have a capsule. In some 

 instances the host-cell is enormously en- 

 larged, and entirely dehemoglobinized, but 

 in most cases the host-cell is not enlarged. 



I have now taken you over some ex- 

 amples of all the known types of blood- 

 parasites, but, at best, the picture in your 

 minds must be like that of a landscape 

 taken from a railway carriage at full 

 speed; and the result, I fear, only a kind 

 of clarified confusion, but it will be some- 



thing if I have succeeded in making it 

 transparent at the edges. What must have 

 struck you most is the smallness of our ex- 

 act knowledge of many of these extraor- 

 dinary organisms and the gaps that there 

 are even in this. But the incitement to 

 future work lies in this fact, for 

 Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing. 



Henrt George Plummee 



SOME EDUCATIONAL PBOBLEMS IN 

 KANSAS^ 



Kansas partakes of the general educa- 

 tional life of our country and confronts in 

 a large measure the problems presented in 

 all other parts of the United States. Much 

 criticism has been directed against public 

 schools, whether common schools, high 

 schools or colleges and universities. Part 

 of this criticism has been constructive in 

 its aim and founded upon a conscientious 

 loyal purpose. Some of its has been de- 

 structive, without adequate basis, and 

 founded upon ignorance or unworthy mo- 

 tives. The conditions that subject the 

 schools to reasonable criticism have been 

 found after investigation to be due not so 

 much to the schools or institutions them- 

 selves as to the character of our community 

 life quite beyond the sole control of schools 

 and colleges. This has been true of Kansas 

 and of its institutions of higher education; 

 and the most searching criticism has shown 

 them to be on the whole sound, economical 

 in their management, praiseworthy in their 

 motives and purposes. That there has been 

 waste in education of all degrees there is no 

 doubt, but if we set up the rule that those 

 agencies of life that present waste must be 

 abolished or their fundamental organiza- 

 tion and purpose changed, then all the 

 agencies of life must be abolished or their 

 fundamental purpose and organization 



1 Semi-eentennial of Kansas State Agricultural 

 College, October 29, 1913. 



