Instructions for the prevention of malarial fever : for the use of residents in malarious places.

Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Instructions for the prevention of malarial fever : for the use of residents in malarious places. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF MALARIAL FEVER. I. The Nature of the Disease.—Malarial Fever or Ague is caused by certain minute parasites which live in the corpuscles of the blood, and are called Hamamoebidee. In order to produce an attack of fever, about 250,000,000 at least of the parasites must be present in the body ; while in severe cases there may be as many as a billion or more. If they are present in sufficient numbers, they can easily be found by the aid of a strong microscope in a small drop of blood drawn from the patient by pricking his skin with a needle. Sometimes however, when the patient is not actually getting fever, they may exist in such small numbers that they cannot be readily detected in this manner. The sudden rises of temperature which occur in this disease, and which are often accompanied by shivering (ague), are due to the parasites scattering their spores in the blood-fluid. The parasites grow up together and scatter their spores, or “eggs,” simultaneously ; and it is at the moment when they do so that the shivering or rise of temperature begins. The spores then occupy fresh blood-corpuscles; when the fever gradually ceases and sweating comes on. After one, two, or three days, a fresh attack of fever occurs, owing to the fact that another batch of parasites, many millions in number, have reached maturity and have scattered their spores. After a variable number of such attacks, the parasites may largely decrease in number, when the patient loses his fever for a time and feels better. At any moment, however, the number
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