Licence: In copyright
Credit: The prevention of malaria. 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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![working, I believe, with unstained films, have described and figured speculation of crescents; but others attributed this merely to post-mortem vacuolisation. We have never found sporulating crescents in stained films in Liverpool, though numbers of these bodies are examined in class. B. Grassi [1901] suggested that the relapses are caused by parthenogenetic reproduction in the gametids. This idea was followed up by F. Schaudinn [1903]. A patient who had suffered long from P. vivax was attacked on 29th April and 1st May, and was found to contain both sporids and gametids. A rally now occurred, during which daily examination disclosed varying numbers of gametids only. On 25th May these parasites were more plentiful. Next day curious changes were noted in the female gametids, suggesting that they were producing spores similar to those ordinarily produced by the asexual sporids. The author considered this to have occurred independently of fertilisation by the male gametids, and to be due to parthenogenesis. The same day (26th May) the patient had a slight rise of temperature to ^S'4° C, and in the evening ordinary young sporids were found. Next day only these forms occurred. On 28th May there was a typical attack with temperature reaching 40750 C, and with the usual sporids. Next day only gametids were again found. The author care- fully described the parthenogenetic forms and traced the corresponding changes in the nucleus. These observations were hailed as an important discovery by many writers, especially zoologists. They have been partially repeated by Maurer [1902], Bluml and Merz [1908], Harrison [1909] and others ; and many of the younger and more confident workers have spent much time in attempts to verify them, or have seen objects like those described by Schaudinn. But the objects twice seen by Maurer are not in any way proved to be parthenogenetic forms ; while those observed in six preparations by Bluml and Merz are supposed by the authors to be more probably cases of production of gametids by gametids—another](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21351600_0136.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
