The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-04
THE MALARIA EXPEDITION.

persons annually. Large tracts of fer
 tile territory have been rendered unin
 habitable by fever. In one of England
 tropical campaigns there were ont
 thousand admissions into the hospita
 on account of wounds received In bat i tie while there were eleven thousand
 cases of fever and dysentery. There
 were one hundred deaths among tht sufferers from wounds and injuries anc
 nearly six hundred deaths due to tho 4 diseases of a tropical climate. Our eX
 perience in the Cuba and Philippine
 campaigns was almost precisely the | same England has spent enormous sums of money in her tropical possess sions in sanitation and the mainte- nance of costly medical service and the
 results often have not been commensu- rate with the expenditure. Some as tonishing discoveries have, however
 been made within the past few years
 which have afforded a clue to the ori- gin of dysentery, malarial fever and
 other diseases and given foundation for
 the hope that further study may result
 in the effective application of measures
 for the destruction Of the causes of this
 mortality.
 These discoveries have to do with
 the great fact, now well established, of
 the parasitic origin of many diseases.
 Some years ago, for example, the actu-
 al cause of malarial fever was shown to be innumerable very small parasites
 inhabiting, the red corpuscles of the
 blood. A writer In the London Times
 thus summed up the results of later ln-
 vestigations.,
 It was soon found that each parox-
 ysm of fever coincided with the life history of single brood of such para
 sites. The species producing tertian ague lived its life and brought it's pro- geny to the same stage in seventy two hours, the species producing quartan ague in ninety-gix hours, while quoti- dian ague was found to be, so to speak, a double tertian. produced by broods reaching maturity on alternate days. In the irregular forms yet another par asitic was discovered, characterized by
 the formation of certain crescent shaped bodies which eventually devel- oped fine threads of 'fagellae.' a cir cumstance which led to the inference from analogy that they were adapted to pass a portion of their lives as par asites in insects. The microscope showed that the effect of a dose of qui- nine, given in proper quantity and at the proper time was fatal to the blood parasites; insomuch that such dose, given to the patient suffering from quotidian ague, might cure him for al- ternate days only-that Is to say, might cure one of his two tertian agues, leav- ing the other unnfuenced, and requir- ing another dose to be given at a time corresponding to particular stage in the exist snce of its causes"
 Some American men of science had already suggested that there was some connection between the prevalence of malarial fever and the activity of mo- squitos. Italian doctors, on the other hand, who had abundant opportunities at home of studying the diseases, were unable to accept the hypothesis. Then Major Roland Ross, a scientific man of England. and lecturer in the Liver pool School of Tropical Diseases, suc- ceeded in discovering in the bodies of one species of mosquito distinct traces of the malarial parasite. Further re- in the past two years have established the fact that malarial fever is often, perhaps always, caused by the bite of the species of mosquito whose name is anopheles.
 It was decided therefore, to send an expedition to Sierra Leone, where ma larlal fever is very prevalent and dead ly, to ascertain, if possible, whether there is any chance of exterminating the anopheles from a given malarial area. The expedition which was head ed by Major Ross was timed to arrive Tn Free Town, the capital of Sierra Le- me, in August last, at the height of the fever season. The fever prevails Ill the year, but is particularly virulent n our summer months Major Ross sent a brief summary of the results of he mission in September, but he has TOW returned to England and on No yember 27th he delivered an address in liverpool giving more facts concerning lis work. He said the mission wished 0 inquire what could be done to ban sb malaria from a small area say two IF three square miles. The members of | he party set themselves to work on | he lines of the recent investigations in | ndia and Italy. In a few days they | ound numbers of the anopheles and in |
 few days more they discovered the | ,erms of malaria actually within these | insects. They knew then to certainty | hat the anopheles of Sierra Leone are | for at least 8 large part of | he fever there.
 The next thing was to ascertain how | hey bred. It was found that they bred n small pools or puddles of certain ind that are easy to identify when one as seen them. The party made maps f these pools and carefully studied the arvae Of the insects. The conclusion vas < unanimously reached that it 'ould proba bly, be easy and inexpensive 3 rid the town almost entirely of the nopheles either by destroying the lrvae in the puddles or, better still by raining away the puddles altogether.
 The problem then is either to exter- innate this particular variety of mo- quito or to provide some sort of pro- ection against it's bites The fact is and important that Dr. iross, in Italy, has succeeded in pro- ucing malarial fever by means of mo- quito bites in man who offered him. elf for experiment.
 It used to be said that one British overnor of Sierra Leone on going out !, the colony always met his predeces-
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