Note on some Aspects and Relations of the Blood-organisms
in Ague.
BY
H. V. CARTER, M.D., LOND.,
PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GRANT COLLEGE, BOMBAY.
Respecting abnormal aspects of the blood in fevers termed " malarial," no
fresh information had been acquired of late; nor had the bacillary structures,
described to me at Rome in 1880-81 by Professors T. Crudeli and Marchiafava,
been witnessed subsequently at Bombay; and hence this subject (others inter-
vening) had remained in abeyance until the present year, when the striking con-
firmation of Dr. Laveran's researches by Professor Osler, published in the
British Medical Fournal of 12th March 1887, compelled, as it were, renewed atten-
tion. In July last, I therefore regularly examined the blood of a man affected with
quartan ague (case No. 1 below), and detecting in it at fever-periods many
pigmented spherules, I next found (in case No. 2) the equally characteristic
crescentic bodies; after which further enquiry was continued until October, with
the results now noted.1
It has thus been already ascertained that in Western India the so-termed
" hæmatozoa of malaria, " are readily to be discerned; and, as this datum will
doubtless apply to India generally, the conclusions arrived at here, as well as
elsewhere, can be tested without delay.
Dr. A. Laveran's original work, the " Traité des Fiévres palustres, Paris,
1884," contains a full account of his " microbe du paludisme " in its ordinary
free forms, all of which I have seen; and, subsequently, to those Algerian dis-
coveries of 1880-81, Dr. Marchiafava and several observers in Italy have added
to the list of " malaria-organisms " other minuter forms sessile within the red
blood-discs, which Dr. Osler in America also fully recognises, and which to a
certain extent have been verified here.
While so far in accord, the results newly acquired at Bombay yet differ in
some respects, and will therefore be given in detail: the kind and source of data
being first stated, next the organisms described, and lastly some of their rela-
tionships discussed.
1During November some further data were acquired, which are alluded to in a Note at the end.
U