44 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VUI. No. 184. 



PROFESSOR KOCH ON MALARIA. 



Professor Koch, who, as we have reported, 

 has recently returned from German East Africa, 

 addressed the Colonial Society of Berlin on 

 June 9th, on the subject of malaria in the trop- 

 ics. He stated, according to the London Times, 

 that he had found the study of Texas fever in 

 cattle of the greatest assistance in casting light 

 upon the nature and origin of tropical malaria. 

 That cattle disease had been found to be trans- 

 ferred from one herd to another solely by the 

 agency of that animal parasite, the tick. He 

 had been able to infect sound cattle with ticks 

 taken from diseased ones, and had succeeded 

 in conferring immunity against Texas fever 

 upon cattle inoculated with the ova of ticks 

 taken from cattle which were sufiering from the 

 disease. Malaria offered manj' points of resem- 

 blance to Texas fever, and he had arrived at 

 the conclusion that in the case of the human 

 disease mosquitoes probably played the part 

 which ticks played in the cattle disease. It 

 was found that wherever there were mosquitoes 

 there was malaria, and wherever, as in the case 

 of a small island on the German East African 

 coast, there were no mosquitoes there was also 

 no malaria. 



He had taken occasion to follow closely the 

 course of cases of tropical malaria in which the 

 use of quinine was dispensed with. He found 

 that, contrary to the view hitherto accepted, 

 the cases where quinine was not used showed 

 that in malaria, as in other fevers, the readings 

 of temperature followed a definite course. 

 Moreover, it had been found possible by a mi- 

 croscopic examination of the blood of the patient 

 to discover from the nature of the microbes it 

 contained the precise stage of the development 

 of the disease. This would be of the greatest 

 importance, since everything depended upon 

 the administration of quinine either shortly 

 before the attack or very shortly after it. It 

 would ultimately, he thought, be possible to ad- 

 minister quinine in a rational manner and so to 

 avoid the injurious consequences of the quinine 

 treatment. Quinine taken at the proper junc- 

 ture undoubtedly stopped the malarial fever. 

 It did so, not by killing the germs, but by ar- 

 resting their growth. A rational and scientific 

 employment of quinine, combined with the es- 



tablishment of health resorts in the mountains, 

 would rob tropical fever of many of its terrors. 

 Professor Koch further discussed what is desig- 

 nated in German Schwarzwasserfieber. Accord- 

 ing to his view this fever is not connected with 

 malaria at all, but is the result, in all probability, 

 of the quinine treatment. In any event, there 

 was no case of this fever in which it could be 

 safely asserted that quinine poisoning was not 

 present. 



As to the possibility of securing immunity 

 from malaria, he called attention to the fact 

 that whole native tribes seemed to be proof 

 against the infection. But if a natural im- 

 munity existed it was reasonable to hope that 

 an artificial one might be created. It had been 

 observed, for example, that persons who had 

 suffered from malaria and had made a gradual 

 and slow recovery without the aid of quinine 

 often acquired entire immunity from the dis- 

 ease. In order that progress should be made 

 in combating the ravages of malaria, it was in- 

 dispensable that doctors trained in bacteriology 

 and in the use of the microscope should be sent 

 to East Africa. The administration of quinine 

 by non-professional hands was a great mistake. 

 If science were one day to cope successfully 

 with this disease it would facilitate the pros- 

 perous development of some of the most fruitful 

 districts in the world. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA FOE THE TITLE-PAGES 

 OF BOOKS. 



The Publisher.s' Association of Great Britain 

 has adopted arrangements for the bibliograph- 

 ical details given on title-pages of books, which 

 we reproduce here, as they are of special im- 

 portance in the case of scientific books. It is 

 to be hoped that they will be insisted on by 

 men of science and followed by American pub- 

 lishers. The recommendations are as follows : 



(1) Date. — (a) That the title-page of every 

 book should bear the date of the year of publi- 

 cation, i.e., of the year in which the impression, 

 or the reissue, of which it forms a part, was 

 first put on the market, {h) That when stock 

 is reissued in a new form the title-page should 

 bear the date of the new issue, and each copy 

 should be described as a ' reissue,' either on 

 the title-page or in a bibliographical note, (c) 



