THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
corpuscle, at the same time absorbing the 
pigment and depositing it in minute granules 
about their bodies often in a regular and circular 
appearance. These spheroidal bodies have the 
power of spontaneous amoeboid movement coin- 
ciding with a more rapid movement of the contain- 
ed pigment granules. They continue to grow 
until finally becoming larger than a red blood 
corpuscle, they divide by segmentation and bud- 
ding, the products of this process floating in a free 
state in the blood plasma. 
(b) Flagellated forms : — In carefully prepared 
specimens of blood in which spheroidal forms are 
present in a free state, occasionally similar sized 
bodies may be seen possessing from 1 to 4 flagella 
with clubbed ends. These flagellated bodies are 
floating in a free state in the plasma. The flagella 
have no definite position and move independently 
of one another with great rapidity, communicating 
their movement to neighbouring corpuscles. Oc- 
casionally other flagella may be seen in a separate 
free state in the blood stream. 
(c) Crescentic forms : — Bodies of the above shape, 
transparent and colourless — save for some pigment 
granules similar to those in spheroidal forms and 
situated midway be ween the horns — maybe also 
found existing in a free state in the blood plasma. 
They do not adhere to the blood corpuscles as is 
often the case with the spheroidal bodies, not have 
they been observed within corpuscles, as is the case 
with coccidia of similar shape in animals (Pepani- 
dium ranarum). They are not endowed with spon- 
taneous amoeboid movement and the contained 
pigment granules are immobile. Intermediate forms 
between these spheroidal and crescentic bodies 
have been described, but their significance has not 
yet been proved. 
(d) Rossctte forms: — Side by side with the 
above forms spher ical elements may occasionally 
be found in malarial blood under investigation, 
pigmented in the centre and regularly segmented. 
These by separation of parts may have some rela- 
tionship to segmental reproduction. 
Lifeless irregular, pigmented amoeboid bodies 
are also occasionally present in the blood. Lave- 
ran found one or more of the above forms present 
in 432 cases of ague out of 480 investigations, 
(spheroidal in 389, crescentic in 107 and flagellated 
in 92 cases). Crescentic bodies were also present 
in 95 out of 107 cases of cacheria or relapse. He 
believes that the small unpjgmented bodies in the 
red blood corpuscles are embryos and that during 
their growth they produce the pigment granules. 
Later on they are endowed with amoeboid move- 
ment and live in a state of freedom in the blood 
plasma or adheie to red corpuscles on which they 
depend for nourishment. The flagella are deve- 
loped in the interior of the sfheroidai bodies and 
at a given moment are thrust out. The interpre- 
tation of the rosettes is doubtful but they are evi- 
dently related to the spheroidal and crescentic 
bodies. 
Though artificial cultivation has not yet been 
successful, experiments have been made on birds, 
dogs, &c. and the disease has been transmitted 
from man to man by inoculation. It is not conta- 
gious but is the most prominent form of a mias- 
matic affection and never becomes a really infect- 
ions disease. It is a specific fever which needs 
suitable conditions of soil for its existence and 
can be introduced from without (like the potatoe 
and orange diseases) and flourish in a suitable soil 
not previously infected with malaria. Spore for- 
mation is not known but it seems highly probable 
that it is in this manner that it finds access to our 
bo lies, either through the medium of drinking- 
water derived from infected marshes or as a miasm 
arising from infected damp ground when undergo- 
ing a process of drying; in the former case by way 
of the alimentary tract and in the latter by way of 
the air passages. I do not wish to enter further 
into the wide subject of malaria, at present under 
discussion all over the world and will refer my 
readers to the works of Prof. Laveran, to which 
I am indebted for much of the information con- 
cerning this plasmode, and in whose works will be 
found a series of beautiful descriptive plates; (1) 
but would point out the close analogy of this 
parasite, attacking as it does the red cells of the 
blood, with that lately discovered parasite at- 
tacking the epithelial cells in cancerous diseases. 
I would in conclusion draw attention to a paper 
by Freire in the October number of the Gazette 
Medicale de Paris describing a micrococcus pecu- 
liar to the highly contagious and tropical yellow 
(1) “De Paludisme de son Hematazoaire ” par 
A. Laveran. 1891. Paris. 
