Two monographs on malaria and the parasites of malarial fevers / I. Marchiafava and Bignami, II. Mannaberg.

  • New Sydenham Society
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two monographs on malaria and the parasites of malarial fevers / I. Marchiafava and Bignami, II. Mannaberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    The cliange of the crescent into the spherical body is followed by further remarkable changes. The pigment^ hitherto lying quiescent, which for the most part forms a fairly regular circle within the body, begins gradually to carry out the well-known tremulous and swarming movement which has previously been discussed. After a time the pigment circle is dissolved, and the now scattered pigment granules actively tumble about throughout the whole body. Soon after the projection of the flagella occurs, as has been previously described in detail. Before calling attention to certain details of this process we must first cleai'ly show the relation between Laveran's crescents and the red blood-corpuscles. Laveran himself held the crescents to be floating free in the protoplasm, and reported in his first communication that they only here and there leaned upon the red blood-corpuscles, from which they could easily be again detached. It must, however, be remarked that Laveran mentioned in his first communication a fine line which connected in a bow the limbs of the crescent, and which, after further observation, proves to be nothing else than the contour of the hlood-cor'puscle in which the parasite has developed itself. The recognition of this endocorpuscular development of the crescent is to be credited to Marchiafava and Celli [20]. The drawings (see Plate IV, figs. 34—50) show that the crescents are either completely enclosed by the blood-corpuscle, or that they at least lie for the most part in it; a fine, sometimes smooth, sometimes markedly crenated line is seen upon them, which represents the contour of the blood-corpuscle, and which can hardly be missed in vivo} I have already given expression to the opinion that the crescents and the spherical bodies of this series respectively possess a true membrane, in proof of which I have referred to the appearances of the flagella at the moment of formation. I have still to add here that the membrane is not always coloured, but is often completely colourless. That Antolisei and Angelini [82] have confused blood-corpuscle debris and membrane is illus- trated by the contradiction which exists in their declaration that the hasmoglobin-coloured cuticula cannot be stained. It is known to every one who has been occupied with staining blood that particles of red blood-corpuscles containing haemoglobin, however little, can always be well stained with eosin. Also ' In some of the drawings nothing is to be seen of either the blood- corpuscles or the bow-line ; this is because the ti-eatment of the preparations with acetic-picric acid renders the red blood-corpuscles almost invisible.