I have made careful microscopic examinations of the blood in several
cases of Panama fever I have treated, and find in all severe cases many
of the colorless corpuscles filled more or less with spores of ague
vegetation and the serum quite full of the same spores (see Fig. N,
Plate VIII.).
Mr. John Thomas. Panama fever. Vegetation in blood and colorless
corpuscles. (Fig N, Plate VIII.) Vegetation, spores of, in the colorless
corpuscles of the blood. Spores in serum of blood adhering to fibrin
filaments.
Mr. Thomas has charge of the bridge building on the Tehuantepec
Railroad. Went there about one year ago. Was taken down with the fever
last October. Returned home in February last, all broken down. Put him
under treatment March 15, 1882. Gained rapidly (after washing him out
with hot water, and getting his urine clear and bowels open every day)
on two grains of quinia every day, two hours, till sixteen doses were
taken. After an interval of seven days, repeated the quinia, and so on.
This fever prevails on all the low lands, as soon as the fresh soil
is exposed to the drying rays of the sun. The vegetation grows on the
drying soil, and the spores rise in the night air, and fall after
sunrise. All who are exposed to the night air, which is loaded with the
spores, suffer with the disease. The natives of the country suffer about
as badly as foreigners. Nearly half of the workmen die of the disease.
The fever is a congestive intermittent of a severe type.
Henry Thoman. Leucocythæmia. Spleen 11 inches in diameter, two white
globules to one red. German. Thirty-six years of age. Weight, 180
pounds. Colorless corpuscles very large and varying much in size, as
seen at N. Corpuscles filled--many of them--with the spores of ague
vegetation. Also spores swimming in serum.
This man has been a gardener back of Hoboken on ague lands, and has had
ague for two years preceding this disease.
I will now introduce a communication made to me by a medical gentleman
who has followed somewhat my researches for many years, and has taken
great pains of time and expense to see if my researches are correct.