THE MICROBES.OF HUMAN DISEASES. 179 
the destruction of microbes is a solution of corrosive 
sublimate (mercuric chloride), one part in 1000, which 
can be further diluted by four parts of pure water. 
V. Microzses oF INTERMITTENT OR MALARIOUS 
FEVERS. 
We say microbes in the plural, since it is almost 
certain that the different types of intermittent fever, 
tertian, quartan fever, etc, are produced by different 
microbes; moreover, it is probable that these microbes 
vary with the locality. That of intermittent fever 
in France is probably not the same as that of the 
malaria, or fever of the Pontine marshes in Italy.; 
and the African fevers, again, are probably produced 
by a different organism. 
Intermittent fevers are the first internal diseases 
of which the vegetable parasitic nature was sus- 
pected. Before that time we were only acquainted 
with the parasites of the skin, and with the entozoaria 
and epizoaria (intestinal worms, lice, acari, etc.), which 
areanimals, In 1869, Dr. Salisbury, of Cleveland, U.S., 
entered on researches which led him to the con- 
clusion that intermittent fever in the marshy valleys 
of the Ohio and the Mississippi must be ascribed to 
the presence in the system of a filamentous alga 
which approximates to the genus Palmella, The 
spores of this alga are constantly found in the saliva 
