SPOROZOA (Neo-Lat. nom. pl., from Gk. -r6pos, spores, seed + NOV, zoom, animal). A class of parasitic protozoa comprising the ma laria germs, Texas cattle-fever germs, etc. While the sporozoa differ much in structure, they are similar in parasitic habits and development. As a rule they are more or less oval or elongated, with no organs of locomotion except in the early stages. They are very minute, though Greparina gigantea, which lives in the intestine of the Eu ropean lobster, is of comparatively colossal size, being a little over half an inch in length. They are nourished by the absorption of the fluid in which they live. The young arise as `sporoblasts,' which when enveloped with a membrane are called spores, the contents of which break up into sev eral small bodies or `sporozoites'; the latter to complete their development must leave the first host and enter a second one.
Same of the sporozoa are parasites in the in terior of cells, such as those lining the intestine of higher animals. Malaria in man has been proved to be due to the presence of a sporozoan (Haunamerba or Phis/nod/inn Larcrani) which invades and destroys at a certain stage in its life history the red corpuscles of the blood. The spo
rozoites are developed in a mosquito (Anopheles) and are transferred from the salivary glands to man by the sting or proboscis. The bird-malaria germ is communicated by the ordinary mosquito (Culex). Another form (Apiosoma bigcminum) causes the Texas fever in cattle, the infection being carried by ticks (q.v.). A parasite of the tsetse fly (q.v.), which is a flagellate Inemato zoan, is the cause of the tsetse disease in Southern Africa. See Insects and Disease, in article INSECT.
The Myxosporida are generally rather large sporozoa, their hosts being fish and insects. The silkworm disease called pebrine is due to one of the Myxosporida (Glugea bombycis), which in habits all the tissues of the caterpillar.
The Sarcosporida, also called Rainey's or Mieschers's corpuscles, take up their abode in the voluntary muscles of mammals. They form oval cysts, which when ripe inclose spores, each of which contains numerous kidney-shaped sporozo ites. Thus Sareoeystis Mioscheriana occurs in the muscles of the pig; Sarcocyst is marls inthe mouse; Sareoeystic Lindemanni rarely in human um,cle.