Some enumerative studies on malarial fever

Prefatory Note by R. Ross .—Towards the end of last year the Advisory Committee for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund (Colonial Office) allotted considerable funds to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for researches to be carried out in Liverpool. This enabled us to commence, under my direction, a number of minute co-ordinated studies on cases admitted into the Tropical Ward of the Royal Southern Hospital—material which, though it offered pecuilar facilities for research, had long remained neglected owing to want of funds. The cases (occurring in the clinics of Dr. Macalister, Dr. Lloyd Roberts, and myself) were placed in charge of Dr. David Thomson; the chemical studies in charge of Dr. G. C. E. Simpson; the parasitological studies in charge Dr. H. B. Fantham. Parallel researches on animals were also assigned to Dr. John Thomson who is working under Sir Edward Durning-Lawrence’s fund the investigation of the effect of temperature on disease; Dr. V. T. Korke (Research Fellow) has studied coagulation times and other details; the literature was in charge of Mr. W. R. Drawz, the Malaria Bibliographer (Advisory Committee’s Fund); and much valuable help has been given by the staffs of the University, the School of Tropical Medicine, and the Royal Southern Hospital of Liverpool, and by Sister Linaker of the Tropical Ward. The researches were commenced on January 1, 1910. A paper by Dr. David Thomson and myself, describing a regular periodical increase of the trypanosomes in a case of Sleeping Sickness, was published; and we now present to the Society brief accounts of our results regarding malaria, blackwater fever, trypanosomiasis, and various therapeutical agencies, obtained (mostly by new methods) up to the end of July, 1910. Further details will be published, if necessary, in the ‘Annals of Tropical Medicine,’ Liverpool.