Page:The Journal of Tropical Medicine, volume 6.djvu/231

June 15, 1903.]

a-series of experiments were conducted with many different mosquitoes and other insects, the procedure adopted being to catch the insects in infected huts or to tear them from larve and then allow them to bite infected persons.

Subsequent dissections were then made, but with one exception all the results were entirely negative. In one isolated instance two forms, showing what has been described as a sausage shape, were seen in the thoracic muscle of Teniorhynchus fuscopennatus (Theo- bald), and this is interesting, because Vincent and myself, when working in Trinidad at the intermediate host of Filaria Demargquazi, found in several instances sausage-stage forms in the thoracic muscles of Stegomyia jasciata reared from larve and fed on infected cases. Those, however, never developed further, and in dis- sections at later dates entirely disappeared.

The fact, however, of finding forms of perstans and Demarquavi in the thoracic muscles showing this stage of development, suggests at once that if one could find the proper efficient host the embryos would migrate to that same region, and undergo a similar development to that of Filaria nocturna in Culex fatigans.

Some of the other insects experimented on, all of which, however, gave negative results, were Stethomyia nimbus, of the subfamily of the Anopheline, Anopheles argyrotarsis, Culex fatigans, Culex atratus, Janthinonsoma musica, Culex viridus, Culex luteolateralis, Culex quasi- | gelidus, Anopheles costalis, Anopheles funestus, Pano- | plites Africanus vel uniformis, Uranotema ceruleocephala, | Pulex irritans, Pulex penetrans (chigger), Pediculus | capitis, and Pediculus vestimentorum.

PATHOLOGY.

_ Filaria perstans, like Filaria Demarquari, gives rise | to no pathological symptoms, the position of the worms }in the connective tissues of the mesentery apparently causing no harm. A differential leucocyte count in a | Series of eight cases showed that five had no eosinophilia, even though one of those had also bilharzial disease— @ very common complaint in Uganda. The other | three—two children, one a young adult—showed an |eosinophile percentage of 15, 16 and 19 respectively ; but as their feces exhibited the ova of ankylostomata, | tricocephalus, and Ascaris /umbricoides, it is difficult to decide to which of those the condition was due.

The idea that sleeping sickness was associated with | Pilaria perstans is disproved by the fact that in British Guiana, where this parasite is common, there is no Sleeping sickness, and vice versé in Kavirondo, where the latter disease is rife, there are no filarie. - BHeviews.

eukcon

A Me or Prague. By Wm. Ernest Jennings, M.B., C.M., Major 1.M.S., with an Introduction by Surg -Genl. G. Bainbridge, I.M.S. London:

4 “A seg Limited. Fifteen plates, pp. 254. Price 8s. net. | Major Jennings has written a book on plague

hich is at once comprehensive, scientifically accu- , and thoroughly up to date. His long experience i THE JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE. 199

of plague in India, and as Chief Medical Officer for plague operations in the Bombay Presidency, has placed him in a position to speak and write with authority, and we welcome his ‘‘ Manual of Plague” as the first systematic account of the disease since the recrudescence of plague appeared, in 1894, in Hong Kong. The text is divided into ten chapters, the two last being devoted to the questions of the suppres- sion and the prevention of plague. The book is well printed, clearly written, and the descriptions are accu- rate.

The workers at plague will turn with greatest interest to the chapters on the means of suppressing the disease described by Major Jennings; and although there is nothing new in the methods recommended, yet a clear exposition of the various procedures in vogue will prove welcome reading.

The entrance of the plague bacillus by way of the skin and the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract is lucidly described; and the possibility of entrance by the conjunctiva, the genital tract and the mucous surfaces of the alimentary canal pointed out. The mode of exit is stated to be ‘‘by some of the secretions and excretions; by its own products, such as débris from disintegrating buboes, contents of blebs or other skin eruptions, sputa, &c., or in blood by hemorrhages from any part.” Rats are looked upon as the chief offenders in the spread of plague; but mice, squirrels, birds, domestic animals, suctorial and parasitic insects, ants, flies and fleas, are also held to be carriers of plague bacilli. The efficacy of Haff- kine’s vaccine is insisted upon, and the usefulness of the various curative sera advocated.

A useful appendix containing forms of report for guidance of medical officers should prove useful.

We congratulate the author upon the excellence of the text and the publishers upon the handsome appearance of the volume.

—<—<»—____ Ale Drugs, *Ke.

SALOQUININE.—Messrs. Zimmer and Co., of Frankfort- on-Maine, have produced a combination of salicylic acid and quinine, which is stated to combine the action of salicin and quinine, and to enhance the periodic, antipyretic and analgesic properties of ordinary quinine. Dr. Cook, of Chicago, has administered saloquinine in

15-grain doses every four hours with beneficial results.— Memph. Med. Month., October, 1902. ees Alotes and Alews.

A CORRESPONDENT in Lourencgo Marques informs. us that there has been no serious cases of malaria in the locality for two years; he attributes this to the un- usual dryness of the weather. This observation is quite consistent with the mosquito-malaria theory—the dry- ness of the season no doubt accounting for the absence of mosquitoes and their larve.