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

Date:
1894
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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 King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    who first sought to classify the blood parasite. He classed it with the Coccidia near to the Klossia soror, and sug- gested for it the name of Hsematophyllum malarise. This has, however, up to the present, not obtained general usage. Metschnikoff also discussed the relation of the “ Hasmatophyllum” to the Phagocytes, but this is referred to in Chapter IX. From the clinical point of view, we have to thank C. Golgi [33—37] f°r very valuable observations to which we shall subse- quently pay special attention. It was Golgi who endeavoured to establish the relation between the symptoms of fever and the various stages of development of the haematozoon, on the one hand, and between the types of fever and the form of the parasite on the other. He has ingeniously brought into clear and natural relation the confusing number of varieties which other observers, without respect to biological and clinical value, had brought to light. Following his track, especially in the methods adopted with reference to the quartan and tertian fevers, Marchiafava and Celli [38], P. Canalis [39], and others sought to bring Golgis rules also to bear upon the pernicious summer and autumn fevers. Golgi’s investigations further brought up the question as to the unity or multiplicity of the malarial virus ; whereas the majority of the Italian observers took the view that different types of fever required different haematozoa, Laveran took the side of the Unitarians, who believe that the many forms at present known are varieties of a very polymorphous but single organism. Notwithstanding the numerous weighty confirmations of the parasitic nature of malaria and of the pathogenic importance of “ Laveran’s bodies” (in the widest sense), there were still to be found some observers who tried to uphold the idea that these bodies were degeneration products and who supported this idea by fresh proofs. Among the representatives of the degeneration- hypothesis, we mention Tommasi-Crudeli [40], with whom are associated Maragliano [41] and Mosso [42—44] ; in Germany also several opposing voices were heard. The objections raised by these observers were, on the one hand, disproved by experi- ment, as by Golgi [36] and his pupils Cattaneo and Monti [45] ; on the other hand, by the accurate study of the structure of the haematozoon, they were disposed of once for all. The first thorough investigations into the nature of the structure of the haematozoon were made by Celli and Guarnieri [46], and were followed soon after by Grassi and Feletti [47J, who studied the quartan parasite and published the first accurate histological
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