Lectures on the malarial fevers / by William Sydney Thayer.

  • Thayer, William Sydney, 1864-1932.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lectures on the malarial fevers / by William Sydney Thayer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    which we are familiar there is a leucocytosis. To this there are two well-marked exceptions—typhoid and malarial fevers. Ex- cepting in certain very grave pernicious paroxysms the number of colorless corpuscles in malaria is almost invariably subnormal. Attention was first called to this point by Kelsch,* while it has since been studied with particular care by Bastianelli f and Billings. J These observers agree entirely in tracing a fairly characteristic course for the total number of colorless corpuscles in the circulating blood in relation to the malarial paroxysm. While the number of corpuscles is almost always normal or slightly subnormal, there occurs a more or less rapid reduction in the number during and immediately after the paroxysm, following this there is a slow, gradual rise until just before the beginning of the succeeding febrile elevation, when there occurs a rather rapid increase in number, to be followed again toward the end of the paroxysm by a fresh fall. It is also interesting and important to note that on more careful study the relative proportions of the different varie- ties of leucocytes one to another have been found to show a distinct and constant deviation from the normal. There is a diminution in the relative percentage of polymorphonuclear ele- ments, with a corresponding increase in the large mononuclear forms. The following tables show the percentages obtained by Billings in sixteen cases, as compared with the normal mean: Small mononuclear Large mononuclear and transitional Polymorphonuclear Eosinophilic ] Normal. Per cent. 18 6 74 2 Malarial fever. Per cent. 16-90 16-90 65-04 0-96 * Arch, de Phys., 1876, 490. t Bull. d. R. accad. mcd. d. Roma, 1892, xviii 487 t Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, 1894, 105.