Fig. 100—Malarial mosquito (A. maculipennis) on the wall.
Fig. 101—Malarial mosquito (A. maculipennis) standing on a table.
These spores are round or somewhat amœboid and are carried in the blood for a short time. Very soon, however, each one attacks a new red corpuscle and the process of feeding, growth and spore-formation continues, taking exactly the same time for development as in the first generation, so every forty-eight hours in the case of the vivax, and every seventy-two hours in the case of the malariæ a new lot of these spores and the accompanying waste products are thrown out into the blood. Thus in a very short time many generations of this parasite occur and thousands or hundreds of thousands of the red-blood corpuscles are destroyed, leaving the patient weak and anemic. It will be seen, too, that the recurrence of the chills and fevers is simultaneous with the escaping of the parasites from the blood-corpuscles, together with the waste products of their metabolism.
These waste products are poisonous, and it is believed that this great amount of poison poured into the blood at one time causes the regular recurring crisis. Zoölogists well know that this process of asexual reproduction, i. e., reproduction without any conjugation of two different cells, cannot go on indefinitely, and those who were studying the life-cycle of these parasites were at a loss to know where the sexual stage took place. In the meantime studies of other parasites more or less closely related to Plasmodium showed that the sexual stage occurred outside the vertebrate host. The remarkable work of Dr. Smith on the life-history of the germ that causes the Texas fever of cattle had a strong influence in directing the search for this other stage of the malarial parasite. Another thing that indicated that this sexual generation must take place outside the body of the vertebrate host was the fact that the investigators found that the parasites in certain of the cells did not sporulate as did the others. When these individuals were drawn from the circulation and placed on a slide for study it was found that they would swell up and free themselves from the inclosing corpuscle and some of them would emit long filaments which would dart away among the corpuscles.
Many men have worked on this problem, but perhaps the most credit for its solution will always be given to Sir Patrick Manson, the foremost authority on tropical diseases, and to Ronald Ross, a surgeon in the English army. There is no more interesting and inspiring reading than that which deals with the development of the hypothesis by Manson and the persistent faith of Ross in the correctness of this theory, and his continuous indefatigable labors in trying to demonstrate it. It was an important piece of scientific work, and shows what a man can do even when the obstacles seem insurmountable.
THE PARASITE IN THE MOSQUITO