When such open evils can be so ignored, what wonder that the more occult sources of malaria should not be arrived at? And when will they be understood while accusations against particular insects require to be held in reverence as dogmas? In the F. M. S. Report for 1911 Dr. Sansom allows (p. 3) “there exists in the minds of a great many people a doubt whether the
mosquito carries malaria or any other disease”; and proceeds to add “until this heresy has been corrected.” Heresy indeed! Is not free thought the first fundamental of science? Having thus labelled disbelief in his theory, Dr. Sansom in his next Report for 1912 has to admit (p. 5), “I have visited many (rubber) estates where anti-malarial work has not been completed or even begun, so that infection remains as bad or nearly as bad as ever, yet, from the time the laborers have been fed, down has come the death-rate.” If food has so much to do with the trouble, why lay all the blame on Lady Anopheles?
And just as too little food helped to make the coolies ill, is it not likely, if it be not rude to ask, that too much food was part cause for the malaria that troubled the prosperous members of the community of Kuala Lumpur, the Federal Capital, so long as a need of drainage left much to be desired in their surroundings? Who acquainted with the Far East does not recall the many courses of the Chinese cook, and the constant refilling of the champagne glass at dinner parties? There seems small wonder that the carnivorous feeder and spirituous drinker from a chilly latitude should fall a victim in the East to malarial and other fevers: and this without any assistance from Lady Anopheles or her sister mosquitoes. To her a meed of praise would seem due, for where the mosquito exists there is proof of a need of drainage, clearance, and general sanitary attention. But man, who has stoned the prophets throughout the ages, equally execrates the insects that come as warnings.
That non-proven is the verdict upon Lady Anopheles’ guilt seems well shown by Dr. Fraser’s Report, incorporated with the general Medical Report for the Federated Malay States for the year 1911.
After rather shakily chanting the orthodox creed of the mosquito theory, Dr. Fraser negatives faith by fact in the most heretical manner. “It appears to have been assumed on inadequate grounds,” he writes, “that a small number of malaria-carrying species in an area is necessarily associated with a low incidence of the disease. Certain observations made in the course of the present inquiry would appear to controvert this view. On some estates where the maximum spleen and parasite rates prevailed
few anophelines of any sort were to be found, while in other areas, where malaria-carrying anophelines were numerous, these rates were low. Also it was noted that where different classes of laborers were under identical conditions so far as the mosquito factor is concerned, such as free and indentured laborers on the same estate, the parasite rates varied widely in the two groups. It is clear that factors affecting the general well-being of laborers, such as the quality of the food supply, housing, etc., are by no means negligible in the prevention of malaria, as they are equally not negligible in the prevention of other diseases. To these factors attention must be directed as well as to measures which aim at the reduction of mosquitoes, if the disease is to be combated successfully in the conditions which obtain in this country.”
Precisely! We must attend to general sanitation and personal hygiene, and then, having removed the beam from our own eye, we may be able to see clearly to cast out the mote in the eye of the Lady Anopheles.
SUMMONS
Mary Lerner
With the velvet springiness of turf under his feet, the sense of urge and strain, as of something inexorably drawing him, relaxed at last; the blind hurry slackened. Out of the whirl came quiet and ordered perception, out of the breathless confusion, peace. And the years which his journey seemed to have consumed ran together and were as a single night. Between white cloud-fleets, the Irish sky began to show blue as Mary’s cloak, and the soft May morning was sweet with dripping green things,—thorn and gorse and heather. Christopher knew from the well-remembered “feel” of the air that the west wind was due to resume its hearty music. Almost out of sight above, a lark sang, and he could see innumerable swallows diving and skimming. At once, the old rhyme of The Seven Sleepers, forgotten these thirty years, rose to his lips like a bubble to the surface of a stream;—