HYGIENE IN MANY LANDS

Evening Star, Issue 19658, 10 September 1927, Page 22

HYGIENE IN MANY LANDS

THE WORLD-FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE JAPAN AND THE MISROSOOPE EDUCATION OF CHIMPANZEES. .Fighting hookworm disease in the mines of Spain; establishing yellow fever investigation posts in the original homo of the disease in West Africa; supporting a medical college at Poking and national health work in Siam; helping to set up a. modern school of ' hygiene and tropical medicine in Central London; establishing nurses’ training schools in the United States, Poland, Brazil, and Yugoslavia, and providing scholarships for 889 men and women from forty-eight different countries to enable them to study health questions—-these are some of the very varied activities detailed in the latest report of the Rockefeller Foundation, a copy of which has just reached London. Their work during 1926 led to the disbursement of 9,741,474 dollars. This annual survey is a wonderful record of a world-fight against disease. The Foundation's principle is, wherever possible, to work through agencies already established, and they feel that their aim is best accomplished when, after giving financial assistance or technical counsel, they arc able to withdraw from a piece of work, eitbei because it is completed, or because it can carry on without further aid. It wants to bo a partner, not a patron. For many years it has helped in fighting yellow fever in Brazil; this work having been first organised by General Gorgas, of Panama Canal fame. The disease was practically stamped out by their efforts, not only in Brazil, but throughout Central and South America. Last year the pursuit of fleeing rebels by loyal troops upset plans, for infection was thereby again spread, and the fire of the fever flared up again in some parts of Brazil. THE GADABOUT ANOPHELES. An important method of fighting yellow fever in countries where water is to be kept mainly in taijks is both by screening them, and also by putting small fish into the tanks, which eat the eggs and lame of the Stegomyia. “ Unlike the home-loving Stegomyia, the Anopheles, which carries malaria, is a confirmed gadabout. She deposits her eggs at a distance in slowly-run-ning streams, in backwaters - full of vegetation, along the edges of lakes.

in ponds, in standing pools by country' well-heads. Sho can even make her way between largo stones to underlying ground water,” says Dr G. E. Vincent, president of the Foundation. It is interesting to noLethat while quinine is still the sovereign remedy for tlie individual, strategically placed pig styes and horse or cow barns will deflect a good many anopheliues from neighboring houses. Draining of ponds and spraying with oil are, of course, recognised preventives of breeding places for the mosquito larvrc, bub it is interesting to note that road dust, usually looked upon as the favorite biding place for microbes, has been found, when mixed with Paris green, effectively to destroy breeding _ places when dusted upon them. 'This has been done with great success in Italy. A LESSSON IN, RELATIVITY. This International Health Board has always been particularly interested in lighting bookworm. This has been done in Jamaica, Central and South America, Spain, India, the Straits Settlements, and Alabama, through comparatively simple hygiene instruction. “ Educating'native people about hookworms is not always so simple as it seems,” states the report. Thus the representative of_the Foundation in Java reports the incredulity of villagers who could not understand the idea of magnifications. Hookworms looked to them like largo snakes. They simply would not believe that one human being could harbor hundreds, even thousands, of such things. Then the officer had an idea. Ho put familiar coins among the worms, photographed them togetiier, and threw the_ now slides upon the screen. The principle of relativity solved the problem. Since 1922 there has been close association between the Rockefeller Foundation and the work of the health section of the League of at Geneva, and'touch help has been given in many ways, particularly in enabling students of . many countries to study health questions both in fhoir own land and at foreign centres. In addition, through the League, international study tours or interchanges for 120 health officers from forty-eight countries have been conducted. MENTAL PROBLEMS. . Mental hygiene is also within ihe copo of the Foundation’s interests. It has given considerable help to tho investigations of psychiatrists, psycho'ogists, and mental hygienists who are looking after under-graduates. At the other end of the study of the mind was the aid given to the research, at Yale University upon the behaviour, and chiefly the self-education, of lour young chimpanzees whose powers of problem-solving were tested and , developed by the use of many ingenious devices. '■ Though the imagination of the man in tho street is likely to he more immediately caught by reference to the more unusual aspects ot the Idundation’s work, the fact must not be overlooked that the establishment of welfare centres, of schools for nurses in America, Europe, and the Far East, and the, promotion of rural hygiene education in many forms,_ particularly in the United States, still continues to be an essential of the most important part of its work.—‘Observer.’