_a. Cultures of strains._ The strain “Greece” of plasmodium vivax was
bred in the department by Miss Lange till 31 December 1942, in the 30th
continuous passage of man-mosquito-man. The number of infected patients
up to that date was 379. The main work concerned the malaria treatment
of paralytics and schizophrenics. In addition, however, there were a few
therapeutic experiments with other diseases, in cases where the clinics
concerned required mosquito bite infections in order to obtain a
reliable malaria free from lues. The number of clinics and hospitals
obtaining part or all their requirements of therapeutical malaria
infection from the department rose to 11. In addition to the strain
“Greece”, various other malaria strains were taken into the mosquito
passage for comparative experiments; they were, however, not permanently
maintained. This considerable amount of incoming clinical material was
continuously collected and sorted although it has not yet been used.
In the course of the research two more laboratory infections occurred
due to mosquito bites.
The following examinations by Dr. Hoering, Professor Rose, and Dr. Emmel
were made possible by the maintenance of the anopheles colony and the
malaria breed.
_b. Parasite straining._ Dr. Hoering continued her work on the
improvement of the microscopic presentation of malaria parasites.
Despite certain improvements of the microscopic picture it was not
possible to develop a procedure easily applicable in practice and
superior to the established methods.
_c. Artificial feeding and artificial infection of anopheles._ Dr.
Hoering continued to develop the methods of artificial blood feeding of
anopheles, evolved by Dr. Olzscha. In this artificial feeding the
anopheles would not take citrated blood even though sugar had been
added. Blood haemolized with water and saturated with sugar was taken,
as well as liquid blood, although the addition of sugar was preferred.
Artificial feeding of blood is biologically not altogether equal to
natural feeding. The duration of life was almost the same with
artificial feeding as with the normal feeding of the animal. However,
females which were merely artificially fed, only laid eggs in
exceptional cases.
It is known that with anopheles which suck blood from the animal, the
blood enters the duodenum without previously entering the sucking
stomach, while other nutritious matter first reaches the sucking and
reserve stomachs. It was previously assumed that the nature of the food,
especially the number of cells, acted as indicative irritation. Dr.
Hoering’s experiments with artificial blood nutrition showed this
assumption to be wrong. Sweetened as well as unsweetened blood, which is
used for artificial feeding, first enters into the reserve stomachs in
the same way as a sugar solution. Further experiments proved that the
piercing of a membrane also causes no indicative irritation.
After the method of the artificial feeding with blood had been
developed, Dr. Hoering carried out experiments with the feeding of
infected blood containing malaria. Finally, it was possible to infect
anopheles by artificial feeding of blood, so that normally developed
sporozoites grew inside them. This is the first time that such an
experiment was successfully carried through.
_d. Conservation of malaria parasites._ Professor Rose had the
experiments continued concerning the conservation of malaria parasites
in liquids suitable for the conservation of blood. Even after 150 days
malaria parasites could be demonstrated morphologically in individual
cases. However, attempt at infection with such blood did not succeed.
The continuation and repetition of these experiments are planned.
The as yet unknown possibility of keeping malaria parasites alive in
vitro for such long periods raises the problem of whether malaria
parasites may become also dormant in human beings. The fact that an
infection could be achieved in human beings with 90-day-old parasites
proves that these preserved parasites did not lose their development and
multiplying properties. The assumption of such dormant forms in the
human being would offer new explanations for malaria relapses after long
intervals of recovery. The department is engaged in morphologically
characterizing the dormant forms observed in a test tube and in
searching for the existence of such forms in clinical malaria cases.
_e. The appearance of anopheles in the Warthegau._ Dr. Olzscha
investigated the appearance of anopheles in 221 hamlets, villages, and
scattered settlements of the Warthegau. Anopheles were found practically
everywhere. The investigation of 600 individual clusters proved beyond
doubt that except in a few cases where a definite determination was not
possible, they belonged to the genus of messaeae of anopheles
maculipennis. Only in one case were A. m. artroparvus found.
* * * * *
_h. Malaria treatment._ Professor Rose in cooperation with
Obermedizinalrat Dr. Sagel, director of the Country Mental Institution
in Arnsdorf-Saxony, and Dr. Mertens, Dr. Koenig, and Dr. Peters,
Leverkusen, tested the efficacy of new synthetic remedies against
mosquito sting malaria. The best method of administering a new and
proved preparation was developed.
* * * * *
PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF ROSE DOCUMENT 47
ROSE DEFENSE EXHIBIT 35
AFFIDAVIT OF PROFESSOR DR. HANS LUXENBURGER, 24 MARCH 1947, CONCERNING
ROSE’S INTEREST IN THERAPEUTICAL MALARIA TREATMENTS
I, Professor Dr. med. Hans Otto Luxenburger, born on 12 June 1894 in
Schweinfurt, residing in Munich, 22 Liebigstrasse 35/II, have been
informed that I will be liable to punishment if I make a false
affidavit. I declare under oath that my statement is true and was made
in order to be submitted in evidence to Military Tribunal No. 1 at the
Palace of Justice, Nuernberg, Germany.
Being a psychiatrist myself, I took an interest in Professor Rose’s
malaria research insofar as we talked now and again about Rose’s
progress and the results of his research. For me as a psychiatrist it
was always noteworthy that Rose regarded cooperation with the
psychiatrists of hospitals for the insane by no means only from the
point of view of his interest in malaria research. On the contrary, he
always showed definite interest in the related psychiatric-therapeutic
questions. Contrary to the opinion formerly advocated by Wagner-Jauregg,
he hoped to attain more thorough and permanent success in treatment by
infection with mosquitoes as advocated by him (Rose) instead of the
formerly customary blood transfusion, because in his opinion endothelia
infection was also attained thereby.
He also was particularly interested in the question of finding a benign
tropical strain and employing it in treatment, in order to carry out
thorough and long fever treatments on cases of paralysis relapse; this
is generally unsuccessful when employing the usual tertiana strains in
cases of relapse.
He was especially interested in the possibility of therapeutic influence
upon schizophrenia. In the well-known psychiatrist Dr. Sagel, he had a
co-worker who advocated the opinion that schizophrenia, apart from its
hereditary basis, must be caused by an additional external impairment,
and he suspected that these causes lay in infectious diseases,
especially rheumatic infections. Working from this assumption, he hoped
for success with this disease similar to that with paralysis. This idea
was not a new one. Similar experiments were conducted earlier. Rose was
especially encouraged in this work by some impressive isolated successes
in quite hopeless cases of schizophrenia. I can recall his joy as he
told me, apart from other, cases, of a woman who was about to be
divorced, after the head of the institution had declared her condition,
which had existed for more than 3 years, to be incurable. In this case
Rose’s treatment, according to his report, not only resulted in
completely restoring the sick woman’s health but also led to her return
to her family and the reestablishment of the marriage.