Malarial Fevers among Europeans in Calcutta, and Their Differentiation from the Seven-Day Influenza-Like Fever

was but a manifestation of the same protean affection. The Malarial Commission of the Royal Society first threw doubt on this simple view by showing that malarial parasites were nearly always absent from cases of chronic fever with very large spleens in Calcutta, and that tiie " endemic index of malaria," or the percenlage of healthy children showing malarial parasites in their blood, was nil in this city in spite of the great number of cases regarded as " malarial cachexia." Rapidly following on this came the startling announcement of the independent discovery by Irishman and Donovan of small protozoal parasites in the spleen in such cases, although the former was the first to recognise their importance. The discovery of the same parasites in kala-azar by Bentley and myself and the demonstration by Donovan in Madras and myself in Calcutta that a large majority of the fevers hitherto classed as "malarial cachexia" were in reality caused by the new parasite quickly followed,* and it now became evident that our former