COMMON COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. 



regions are more apt to be attacked, as these 

 are favorite haunts of the mosquito. In such 

 places window screens and doors with a very 

 close mesh should be used to prevent the in- 

 vasion of the anopheles. The germs get into Makrilt!""" 

 the red corpuscles of the blood through the 

 agency of the mosquito, live upon them, and 

 destroy them. We are taught that there are 

 three varieties of the malaria germ (as there 

 are also three forms of the disease), one of 

 which lives in the human structure seventy-two 

 hours, and the other two forty-eight and 

 twenty-four hours, respectively.* Their death, j. , , 

 sad to say, does not mean the end of the Days and 

 mischief they accomplish, as when they cease " *'^ ication. 

 to exist themselves they divide up into a 

 number of tiny particles or segments each of 

 which means a new life or germ. These new 

 germs attack other red corpuscles and live upon 

 them until they, too, die, but in dying they 

 form new parasites, as their parent germs did 

 before them. Each fresh set of germs de- 

 stroys a large number of the red corpuscles. 



Koch, and other scientists, who teach that Mode of 



• 1 1 -i LI- 2.-L. Communica- 



the germ is carried by mosquitoes, believe they tjon. 



*The names given to the three forms or species of 

 the Plasmodium are, (i) Plasmodium praecox, found in 

 aestivo-autumnal malaria, living twenty- four hours; (2) 

 the Plasmodium vivax of the tertian form of malaria, 

 the life of virhich is forty-eight hours; (3) the Plasmodium 

 iiialariae, found in the quartan form of malaria, which 

 has a seventy-two hour life. 

 93 



