AGAINST MALARIA

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 167, 12 April 1926, Page 6

AGAINST MALARIA

INTERNATIONAL ACTION SHOULD NEW ZEALAND JOIN? THE WINGED CARRIER IS AT HOME, BUT NOT HERE Should New Zealand join the International Malarialogical Institute? The institute is the latest specimen of international co-operation against disease. It is directed against malaria, and is based on Rome. Italy lias been the cradle of clinical studies in malaria. A conference of countries whose subjects are concerned with malaria, and with international co-operation against that disease, asked the Italian Government to take the initiative in launching the Institute. The Italian Government communicated with the British Government, among others; and it is understood that the British Government is consulting the Dominion Governments. . The British Empire undoubtedly includes much malarial country, but it is doubtful whether the same can be said of New Zealand and her dependencies. New Zealand herself has no malaria. A Blank Cheque. The International Malarialogical Institute has so far been the subject of very little explanation beyond what is conveyed in its name. Vital details, such as how it is to be constituted, what it will do, and what it will cost, seem to be still undetermined. A nonmalarial country may possibly hesitate to sign a blank cheque of this character. „ . _ ~ . While Italy was first in the field in the medical war against malaria, Britain was a good second, the United States third. America’s great and spectacular success against the disease at Panama was based on Italian and British investigations of the part plaved in malaria by the mosquito known as anopheles. In the story of these investigations will be found the names of Laveran and Celli (Italy). and Manson and Ross (Britain). The activity of malaria seems to be dependent on two factors —a high temperature (averaging 70 degrees or more) and the presence of the kind of mosquito (anopheles) that carries the disease. New Zealand, so far as is known, has no anopheles, and is generally unsuitable to malaria from the temperature point of view. Malarial subjects brought into New Zealand tend to recover. War-Carriers Did Not Re-lnfect. The earlv medical records seem to establish beyond doubt that at one time in the northern hemisphere malaria was active farther north than it is to-day. At anv rate, they indicate its in Old England and even in Georgian England. Was the England of old warmer than modern England ? Whether it was or not, malaria _ has long since ceased to be a major factor among the diseases of the United Kingdom, and even the plentiful supply of fresh infection that England s soldiers incurred in the .world-war, when they battled in manv malaria regions and returne home, many of them individual victims to, or carriers of, the disease even this stimulation to malarial infection has failed to cause any recrudescence of malaria in England or iso far as is known) in any of the temperate countries that in modern thnes have been practically immune from it. Ancient Origin: Slandered “Night Air.” According to authorities, malaria-was active in England in the Middle Ages, and was e'ndemic in certain parts of England under the House of Hanover. For some reason, the English agues have vanished, although the anopheles mosquito, carrier of the disease, still persists, and is found to-day in many marshy places on the east and southern coast's of England. The ancients observed correctly the phenomena connected with malarial infection without perceiving the real role of the anopheles (which was not, indeed, finally demonstrated till the ’nineties of last century). The ancients connected up infection with stagnant water and the “miasm’ arising from it, without seeing the part played bv the mosquito that also bred in and arose from the same water. They observed that malaria was most likely to be contracted about sunset and at night without discerning that the danger of that period was due to its being the biting-time of the female anopheles. Instead, thev blamed the 'night air, and night air sustained undeservedly, for centuries, an infectious reputation.

Irrigate on Anti-Malarial Lines.

Durin" the Great War malaria took its toll in Gallipoli, Macedonia, and Palestine. In the Jordon Valley the New Zealand force lost 50 per cent, of its effectives. Tn Macedonia 70 per cent, of the British effectives were lost It is contended that malaria contributed largely to the overthrow of the ol<l civilisations of Greece, Palestine and Mesopotamia. A great weapon of their economic science was _ irrigation, and irrigation carried on without regard to mosquitoes might easily produce the condition that Colonel Goethals found at Panama before be adopted antimalarial measures, and made war on mosnnitoes. The old civilisations had no Laveran, or Ross, or .Manson, or Goethals. Anv modern nation that undertakes to revive Mesopotamian irrigation would surelv do it on anti-malarial 111 As New Zealand bns.no malaria, no general temperature suited to malaria, and no anopheles, and as all available evidence is to the effect that even New Zealand’s ‘tropical dependencies are free of malaria, would it be wise for the New Zealand Government to sign the blank cheatie represented by the International Malarialogical Institute. Are there not more urgent calls in the way of preventive medicine, within the Dominion ? ___________