haematozoon

The malarial haematozoon is a protozoon, a very small protozoon since it lives and develops in the red blood cells which in man have a diameter of only 7 microns.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

Confirmatory investigations at first rare, became more and more numerous; at the same time endoglobular parasites were discovered in different animals which closely resembled the haematozoon of malaria.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

A large number of observers have admitted the existence of several species of malarial haematozoa, but for my part I have always defended the unity of malaria and its haematozoon, and the postulated species described under the names of parasites of tropical malaria, aestivo-autumnal fever, tertian or quartan fever appear to me to constitute simple varieties of the same haematozoon.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

In 1880, the technique of examination of the blood was unfortunately very imperfect, which contributed to the prolongation of the discussion relative to the new haematozoon and it was necessary to perfect this technique and invent new staining procedures to demonstrate its structure.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

King2 in America had suggested in 1883 that mosquitoes played a part in the aetiology of malaria but he did not know of my work on the haematozoon of malaria and could not specify what part the mosquitoes played, so that in saying that the mosquito acted as a temporary host of the malarial parasite I had obviously got closer to the problem than King had been able to do.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

Before the discovery of the malarial haemotozoon no pathogenic endoglobular haematozoon was known; today the Haemocytozoa constitute a family, important for the number of genera and species and also for the role some of these Protozoa play in human or veterinary pathology.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

It has now been definitely proved that the haematozoon of malaria has, like the Coccidia, two forms of reproduction: asexual, represented by the segmented bodies, and sexual, the flagellae being the male elements.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

After the discovery of the malarial parasite in the blood of the patients an important question still remained to be solved: in what state does the haematozoon exist outside the body and how does infection occur?

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

The haematozoon which I gave as the agent of malaria did not resemble bacteria, and was present in strange forms, and in short it was completely outside the circle of the known pathogenic microbes, and many observers not knowing how to classify it found it simpler to doubt its existence.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967

Having left the malarial countries it was not possible for me to verify the hypothesis I had put forward on the role of mosquitoes, and it is to Dr. Ronald Ross that we owe the demonstration that the malarial haematozoon and the closely related Haemamoeba malariae of birds complete several phases of their evolution in the Culicidae and are propagated by these insects.

Alphonse Laveran - Nobel Lecture 1967