DEADLY MALARIA

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 5

DEADLY MALARIA

—. « SGOURBE THAT HAS HUMBLED EMPIRES ONE OF EGYPT’S PLAGUES Malaria probably stands out by itself as tbe most insidious of ail scourgeswith which the human race has been afflicted from the' earliest times (says | the Sydney ‘Sun’). Since the dawn the the historical epoch , it has wrecked great empires, humbled proud cities into the dust, and desolated the earth’s fairest and most prosperous regions. Even at the present day me repercus- ) sion of some of the events which it set I in motion long ago are still being felt. I Whence malaria first came, or even the approximate date of its first appearance in some of the areas where it later -established itself enckunically, it is impossible to say. It is not a tropical disease, as is often thought, althoughit probably originated in Asia, subsequently .acclimating itself in prac-' tically- every quarter of the earth. Records of it exist from the most remote i ages, and in the light of modern knowI ledge the “ Angel of the Lord ” which struck down the host of the Assyrian Sennacherib has since been identified with the cerebral form of the disease, its most deadly, and one of its rarest , varieties. All that is known- definitely . I as to its origin is that India and those ■ 1 parts of Asia where the first civilisa- I 1 tion arose ■ were probably malarious 1 | from before the time when man first I emerged from the mists; that is to say, I the protozoal parasite which is its I causntorv organism, and the anophelino mosquito its carrier, were ready waiting for their human hosts to come upon the scene. ... I The first historical mention of the scourge relates - to its , appearance in the Mediterranean countries. Scholars and' scientists both have concluded that in the prehistoric era there was no malaria along the shores of the Mediterranean, but that it entered that part of the world from Egypt, where it seems always to. have existed, and gradually crept along through Greece and Italy, undermining as it went the great and flourishing civilisation of those lands, and finally playing one of the most important, if not the most important, part in their decay and eventual collapse. To it has been attributed the action of bringing about the downfall of Rome by' weakening the State until it was no longer able to withstand the encroachments of the alien forces which rushed upon it and finally overwhelmed it. It is known that the disease was present in Sicily in 500 n.c., and that it spread to the adjoining mainland soon afterwards. Probably its dissemination was slower then than it would bo to-day, and therefore it can be concluded that it was well on towards 400 ii.c. before it had established itself in

Rome. For some time it seems to hard lain in a condition of dormancy, for we do not hear of it as being widespread in the city and the surrounding areas until near the end of the Republic, Thence onwards the references to it in the works of contemporary writers are numerous. That it was also one of the chief causes in this age of the desolation of great and flourishing cities like Metapontum, Sybaria, and Tarontum, as well as of the periods of decadence in other oentres fortunate enough to escape its onslaughts, is certain. ACTIVE ANOPHELINE CARRIER. By the dawn of the Imperial era Romo was suffering badly, and the political situation which intervened soon afterwards helped the scourge to fasten its hold the more • securely. Just outside the city were vast, marshy areas, ideal breeding-places for the anopholine carrier, but which during the Republic had been kept fairly well drained by the presence in them of the '' latifundia,” great farms cultivated ihordes of cheap and incompetent slave labor. When, for its own political ends, the Government at Rome commenced tho importation of corn, which it distributed to the citizens as largesse,, these farms naturally fell into disuse, and eventually were abandoned, with the result that they reverted to their original cor. litmus of swamp. Thus the anopheniK! increased its numbers, and before long malaria was raging in tbe city ih almost epidemic form. The direct effects were the characteristic lassitude, tin* .'■al'mv faces, and the lack-iuser> eves of the malaria victim, and ihe dis-iopeaianre of that energy and vigor on which the Roman citizens had formerly prided himself. The indirect results were a heightened mortality rate, especially amongst the children, who seem to be always the most heavily infected in a stricken area, and the consequent falling-off in tho number of-those available for military service an the legions of the State. It- was this which led to the gradual introduction of mercenary troops, first from _ the colonies and later from the Asiatic provinces, the first step in the process of disintegration, which ended finally in the utter and complete break-up of the most highly-organised and complex system of- government in that age. Today, after the passage of nearly twenty centuries, the disease still remains in Italy, notably in the Canipagna, whore the efforts for its eradication annually cost the nation an immense sum. When malaria first reached England, or by what route it travelled ;inr a , is unknown, but it seems fajrlv certain that it was definitely established in the country by tbe close of the fiiirentb century. Probably tbe germs of it wore conveyed thither by 1 riders limn the Mediterranean, wli io t then Lola complete sway; while another possibility is that the homing Crusaders brought it buck with them irom tho Holy Land, ono of the oldest foci of the disease. Fortunately England does not seem to have ever been infected on a widespread scale, ntnStr* wise the British Empire might nswS? have existed. ... , From the beginning it appears to noses localised itself in the fen lands whicfe stretch from the shores of the Wasti south to Cambridge. There it was recognised for hundreds of years as an affliction which was largely inevitable, and until the fens were drained and the mosquitoes finally banished, the onlv effort against if was a prophylaxis consisting of raw spirits ior tiie poorer sufferers and port wine and laudanum for the wea.thicr onesWith the mosquitoes the disease went, too; but there are still plenty living who can remember the visible effects of its ravages around Cambridge. Ear more extensively distributed' was tho scourge in Europe, where there are still vast tracts under its sway, especially towards the eastern borders, the advent of the Communist regime and the abrogation of former sanitary systems, which held the parasite at least temporarily m check. MILDNESS OF AUSTRALIAN VARIETY.

In tlio early seventeenth century it appeared in parts of Europe as an epidemic. and just after the close ol the Thirty Years’ War, in 104 h, whole regions of Germany were devastated by the “ marsch fieber,” which still remains in some ot uiem to-day, oiton causing considerable economic loss by its hindrance to industry and production. Franco seems to-have been lucky enough to escapo, ior in that country, where it goes by the name of “ paludistne,” its incidence is not great. What might be termed the lt malarial bolt ” of Europe stretches rather through the north, and runs right to the frontiers of Russia, whence it probably came in the first place. As has been the case with most other varieties of disease, Australia has been singularly fortunate in escaping the ravages of malaria up to the present time. In this country the disease is to be found only along the eastern seaboard, where it exists in a relatively mild 'form, its social and physical elfocts being insignificant. Hut, nevertheless, those who have made a study of it have scon in its presence there aro beginnings of what may yet constitute a national problem ol dimensions hardly less than those m other lands. Until recently ,it was confined to only the northern quarter ol tbo coast, where it interfered with settlement hardly at all, and cases of it further south than Rockhampton, Central Queensland, wore rare, if not altogether unknown, in tho last decade, however, the disease has travelled slowly but surely down tho coast until it has appeared at points in the North of New South_ Wales, and oven as far down as the Newcastle district. Sporadic cases of it have broken out on the northern rivers, and in some of these there is a warning to be seen in the fact that the sufferers had never been out of the district in which they must have acquired the infection in tho wholo of their lives.

Should the disease continue this southward progress the clanger is that in time Sydney itself will become infected, which would mean a national calamity of proportions winch it is easy for the layman to visualise. iho surroundings oi the city abound in breeding-places for tho anoplichne mosquito, and the insect itself is frequently to bo oncountcrd. oven in suburbs which lie but a threepenny tram from the heart of tlie capital. All that ia wanting to set up the cycle ol infection is a supply of hosts to act as the reservoirs of the parasite from which tha anopheles can distribute the germs.