In 1880, a young French army
surgeon, Laveran by name, working in Algiers, found in the microscopic
examination of the blood that there were little bodies in the red blood
corpuscles, amoeboid in character, which he believed to be the germs of
the disease. Very little attention at first was paid to his work, and it
is not surprising. It was the old story of "Wolf, wolf"; there had been
so many supposed "germs" that the profession had become suspicious.
Several years elapsed before Surgeon-General Sternberg called the
attention of the English-speaking world to Laveran's work: it was taken
up actively in Italy, and in America by Councilman, Abbott and by others
among us in Baltimore. The result of these widespread observations
was the confirmation in every respect of Laveran's discovery of the
association with malaria of a protozoan parasite. This was step
number three. Clinical observation, empirical discovery of the cure,
determination of the presence of a parasite. Two other steps followed
rapidly. Another army surgeon, Ronald Ross, working in India, influenced
by the work of Manson, proved that the disease was transmitted by
certain varieties of mosquitoes. Experiments came in to support the
studies in etiology; two of those may be quoted.
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