April 2, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



which had not yet been subjected to medication, 

 and in which a febrile paroxysm had just been 

 inaugurated. A drop of blood from the patient's 

 finger was brought directly under the microscope, 

 and Dr. Marchiafava soon succeeded in demon- 

 strating to me in a most satisfactory maimer the 

 presence, in several red blood-corpuscles, of the 

 organism referred to. I saw the amoeboid move- 

 ments very distinctly, and cannot doubt that the 

 extremely minute, transparent, and apparently 

 structureless mass which I was looking at was, 

 in truth, a living organism. 



The space at my disposal will not permit me to 

 review the evidence in favor of the supposed cau- 

 sative role of this blood-parasite. It is evident 

 that further researches will be required before 

 this can be accepted as definitely settled ; but I 

 must call attention to the fact that all of the 

 observers mentioned testify that granules of 

 black pigment are frequently found in the in- 

 terior of the parasite (figs. 26 and 27). Patholo- 

 gists have long since recognized the presence of 

 similar pigment in the blood and in various or- 

 gans as a distinguishing characteristic of malarial 

 disease ; and it has been generally agreed that this 

 pigment has, in some way, had its origin from 

 the haemoglobin of the red blood - corpuscles. 

 These, by some agency, are destroyed in large 

 numbers during a malarial paroxysm. This has 

 been proved by actual counting of the number 

 of corpuscles in a given quantity of blood drawn 

 before and after the paroxysms, and is made 

 apparent by the rapidly developed anaemia which 

 results from malarial attacks. 



Marchiafava and Celli propose to call this or- 

 ganism Plasmodium malariae. Laveran has 

 abandoned the name first suggested by him — Os- 

 ciliaria malariae — for the reason that it might 

 lead to the mistaken supposition that the parasite 

 in question belongs to the Oscillatoriaceae, a fam- 

 ily of confervoid algae : we are therefore at liber- 

 ty to accept the name suggested by Marchiafava 

 and Celli, until such time, at least, as the life- 

 history of the parasite has been worked out, and 

 its proper relations determined. 



Finally, we may mention that Marchiafava and 

 Celli report several cases in which they have been 

 successful in producing characteristic attacks of 

 malarial fever by injecting into the circulation of 

 persons free from such disease a small amount 

 of blood drawn from the veins of a patient suffer- 

 ing from a malarial attack. In these cases the 

 presence of the blood-parasite described was veri- 

 fied in the blood used for the inoculation, and 

 subsequently in the blood of the inoculated in- 

 dividual when he was seized with an intermittent 

 fever as a result of such inoculation. It is also 



stated that the parasite disappeared from the blood 

 under the influence of the administration of quin- 

 ine, by which the induced malarial disease was 

 promptly cured. George M. Sternberg. 



A TRADE-ROUTE BETWEEN BOLIVIA 

 AND THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



Thouar, whose departure for a new explora- 

 tion of the Pilcomayo we have already noted, 

 announces his safe return and successful accom- 

 plishment of the work attempted. The party, 

 comprising twenty -three men, and two officers of 

 the Argentine army, and a volunteer, Mr. Wil- 

 frid Gillibert, left Fotheringham on the 5th of 

 October, and reached the locality called El 

 Dorado, two miles above the rapids, Nov. 12. 

 Several encounters with the Indians had previous- 

 ly taken place, but here the explorers came upon 

 a perfect ant-hill of Tobas. There were over two 

 hundred huts, and about fifteen hundred Indians, 

 against whom a victorious combat was waged, 

 the Toba chief falling early in the conflict. After 

 the fight, the explorers remained in camp on the 

 spot for six days, minutely examining the obstruc- 

 tions in the river, and making canoes, with which, 

 on the 18th of November, they started down the 

 river, reaching the Paraguay Dec. 5, after two 

 months of great hardship. They lost one man 

 killed, and three disabled by wounds or dysentery. 



The object of the exploration was to determine 

 the character of the obstructions to navigation 

 reported by Major Feilberg, and therefore the 

 possibility of using the Pilcomayo as a commer- 

 cial highway between Bolivia and the Argentine 

 Confederation. In brief, the conclusion reached 

 by Thouar is, that the so-called rapids are not of 

 a serious character, being composed of soft ter- 

 tiary rock, easily removed, and, even as they are, 

 not impassable ; since Father Patino ascended 

 them with his boats in 1721, and safely reached 

 the borders of Bolivia. The depth of the river up 

 to this point, at low water, averages eight feet ; 

 and beyond it, nearly five feet, with a rise in 

 flood-time of over twenty feet. There are com- 

 paratively few snags or sand-banks. The channel, 

 in floods, is clearly marked by the lines of high 

 trees which border it, even when the plains be- 

 yond the channel are flooded. The channel is 

 about thirty yards wide, and the current averages 

 two mil ps an hour. Steamers of two hundred 

 tons, drawing not over two feet and a half of 

 water, could ascend the river to the Bolivian mis- 

 sion of Solano at any stage of the water. On the 

 strength of this favorable report, an international 

 committee has been formed, composed of Bolivian 

 and Argentine officials, engineers and capitalists, 



