ETIOLOGY. — McLaughlin, of Texas, has found a micrococcus in the blood of patients suffering with dengue which he believes to be the specific cause of the ease. The infection of this disease is more virulent and spreads more rapidly, if possible, than that of influenza; it tacks alike male and female, young and old, all classes indiscriminately. During the epidemic in Galveston in 1897, 20,000 people were attacked within two months.
ft prevails generally in the summer son, is favored by faulty hygienic tions, and spreads along the lines of travel by land and sea. It is believed by many to be contagious.
:Mosquitoes are the carriers of the in fection from person to person. In Bey routh those individuals that were bitten by infected mosquitoes invariably got the disease; the others that were pro tected from their bites remained well. A careful examination of the blood in over 100 cases showed each time the presence of amceboid organisms in the red cells. These organisms closely re
sembled the plasmodium of malaria, the only difference being that the cycle of reproduction or formation in the human blood is longer in dengue than in ma laria, and the changes in their life phases are slower and more difficult to follow. Flagellate Vidies were also en countered. The constant presence of this in the red cells during the fever, its resemblance to the parasite of Texas cattle-fever, its likeness in manner of growth and mode of propagas tion by the mosquito to the malarial parasite, all speak in favor of the author's view that this parasite is the cause of dengue. Among the mosquitoes were found certain forms of Cu/cx which showed themselves capable of car rying the disease to man. Graham (Medical Record, Feb. S. 1902).
PATHOLOGY.—The lesions of this dis ease are practically unknown.