Malaria has often been the diagnosis made when in reality the correct diagnosis should have been kala-azar, trypanosomiasis, relapsing fever, Malta fever, liver abscess, septicæmia, cerebro-spinal meningitis, pyelitis and surgical kidney, lymphangitis, ulcerative endocarditis, one of the anæmias, tubercle or syphilis, etc. On the other hand a diagnosis of dysentery, cholera, cerebral hæmorrhage, gastritis, appendicitis, siriasis, puerperal fever has often been made, and more rarely insanity, where malaria was the disease in question. A blood examination would, in practically every case of the above list, have led correctly to the elimination of malaria where it did not exist, or to its discovery when present.
We cannot, then, in consequence of the innumerable mistakes made in diagnosis in tropical disease, too strongly emphasise the importance of examination of the blood.
A speedy and correct diagnosis in tropical disease is of such vital importance in so many cases that to discover one's mistake a day or two later may prove useless. To diagnose siriasis or cerebral hæmorrhage, when in reality the patient is suffering from malaria of a cerebral type, will probably result in the death of the patient, or at the best leave him
