PRIZE ESSAY OF THE ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, FEB.,
1882.

VII.


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