CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
PLASMODIUM MALARIZ (MALARIAL PARASITES; 
LAVERANIA)— AM@BA COLI (AM@BA DYSEN- 
TERIA OF COUNCILMAN AND LAFLEUR ; DYSEN- 
TERIC AMG&BA). 
Many attempts have been made from time to time 
to discover a specific organism in malaria. As early as 
1846, according to Marchiafava and Bignami, an Ital- 
ian observer (Risori) suggested the possible parasitic 
nature of the disease. In 1880, Laveran announced the 
discovery of certain parasitic bodies in the blood of 
patients with malarial fever. He recognized that they 
were parasites, and raised the question whether they 
were amcebe. Subsequently, influenced no doubt by 
the presence of the motile filaments, he suggested the 
term oscillaria malarie. Marchiafava and Celli de- 
scribed with great accuracy the intracorpuscular amoe- 
boid form, to which they gave the name plasmodium. 
The most important additional fact was added by Golgi, 
who pointed out the association of the paroxysm with 
the segmentation of a group of the malarial organisms. 
Laveran’s work and the differentiation by the Italian 
observers of varieties of the parasite in different clinical 
forms of the disease have since received full confirma- 
tion, and the testimony is now unanimous in France, 
England, India, America, Italy, and Germany that 
these bodies are always present in the malarial fevers. 
