SCOURGE OF MALARIA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4707, 4 June 1924, Page 2

SCOURGE OF MALARIA.

—«— — HEAVY ANNUAL DEATH-ROLL. ■J’LEA FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH. Colonel Sir Ronald. Ross, guest of limioiu at the overseas League monthly luncheon at London Criteria ’, made a most earnest appeal to all present to exert every possible influence t,< get everyone to understand the great necessity that exists for expenditure on medical research, writes a Loudon correspondent. He was speaking primarily about the ravages of the mosquito, which cause so much mortality annually from malaria, and iie took the opportunity to emphasise hi< point by venturing the prediction " that one in ten of the people present at the luncheon would have cancer. The p atter was a very serious one, but he thought it could be solved very iiu’ekly by the use of the best brains that could be bought in the country. Only one million a year was being spent by the whole world on medical research. He held that the British Empire should lead the way in banishing malaria within its bounds, for that would mean freeing the whole world from the scourge.

Sir Ronald said he wanted to get the question of dealing with malaria pressed on in this country. There had been cases here during the warcontracted on the East Coast —due to some extent to the returned soldiers. The climate of England was too diabolical even for the mosquito (laughter), but many other countries had them. He had suggested, in a broadcast message the other day, that he might get a thousand infected mosquitoes and release them in the House, of Commons —this would make everybody tiiink of the mosquito and take steps to get rid of it somehow. More money and more interest were needed, KNOWN TO ANCIENT GREEKS. Malaria was a disease known to the ancient Greeks, and had continued till to-day, causing ill-health and many deaths, though the fatal cases were small in proportion to the number attacked. In India, with its 300.000 000 people, It was estimated at one time that there uvere annually 1,300.000 deaths from malaria. ’ In the rest of the world there were 700,000 deaths a. year, so that there was an annual mortality of something like 2,000,000 from this disease. They had to multiply that by 1 200 or 300 to get the number of cases of malaria in. the world. During the war there were 150,000 cases on the Salonika front alone, and now this country was paying :i “whacking” amount for pension. Only that morning he had seen twelve stiffrers whom he was trying to cure. Malaria had a very large political and economic effect. It rendered large tracts of most fertile country not exactly uninhabitable, but very unhealthy. It extended through all warm countries, and had been recorded as far north as Norway. One would think, that a disease of such importance would be carefully studied by all leading medical men, but it was not. Very little money was being spent, and kowledge of the matter was chiefly due to private individuals. Sir Ronald Ross refereed to .‘the work -of Sir Patrick Manson—on whose theory that the disease was carried by the mosquito he bad set to work—and related how. after two years of failure, he discovered that the female anopheles mosquito was the true carrier of malaria, and thus found “the key which enabled us to open the lock shortly ' afterwards.” When it was discovered, he added, the Government of India moved him away to a place where there wa> no malaria (laughter), and for five months he could do nothing. They had first to prevent and then cure. There were more malarial parasites in an affected man’s blood than there- were inhabitants of the globe. TINY ANIMALS. These were not germs, but tiny animals ; minute pieces'of jelly-like substance. With quinine properly administered they could be killed. The great puzzle had been as to how they got into the blood. All the theories had been upset; and it was only by a fluke tnat he found out on August 20, 1897, what was happening. The malarial parasites in the- mosquito threw off spores, and these were carried by the saliva of the insect and injected into a healthy person. The result was the loss of two millions of lives every year ; as many as the lives lost in the Great War. Sir rlrnest Birch, who was in the chair, said there were no more earnest men in the Civil Service than the medical officers, who went abroad on very .small salaries and worked for the Government. These meq had for many years been inducing everyone to take every possible step to keep the malaria carriers away from human habitations. It was impossible to contend against malaria if people were careless. He described the mosquito as an obnoxious beast, and an extraordinary thing, for it made people (io lots of things they otherwise would not do, and spend much money on nets and devices to try and keep them out —indeed, it had extended trade in many directions. Its method was very evil, for it lived in the dark and loved stagnant water, and it was the great bugbear of everybody who lived inthe same, part of the world as the mosquito. It was the -sign of a good wife when there were no mosquitoes in the house —it was the sign of an open-handed person who kept his house always open to visitors when it wa< free from the pest. If a man did not entertain and keep his house open a cloud of mosquitoes would arise in it. and so a man’s character could be gauged. (Laughter.) The name of Sir Ronald Ross would never be for? - gotten in medical research.