The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1904-07-06
Controlling MaIavial Infection al
Panama.

The mosa important part OF our
sanitation, ] think, will turn upon the
control Of malaria in these villages.
Most of the houses are still in pretty
fair state of repair, and many of them
are still occupied by the families OF
the former employees on the canal.
The men have. wandered off to the
neighboring republics in search Of en-
ploymen5. It is estimated that there
is still population of about fifteen
thousand in these villages along tthe
canal. These people are all, more or
less, suffering from malaria. The
anopheles mosquito, which is the
malarial mosquito, bites them, be-
comes herself infected, and when she
in turn bites newcomer, conveys
malarial fever to him. If We intro
duce forty-fve thousand unacclimated
people into these villages, intimately
associated with the present infected
population, our condition, in the
course of year or two, will be about
as bad as that &C the French. The
mosquitoes that became infected from
the present population would soon
have bitten most of the new comers,
and, in few months, they would all
be suffering from malaria. Now, we
propose to organize, as We did in Ha-
7ana, brigades in all these villages
who will destroy the breeding places
of the mosquitoes, and Mus keep the
insect down to it's lowest numbers. At
the same time, we expect to take all
the present population in these villa
pes, find out who have malaria,
make a record of each individual case,
and keep them under daily, treatment
till the malaria1 parasite has disap-
peared from the blood.
We hope that, a year from now,
when our upacelimated population
comes, it will be to clean, uninfected
villages, with all the present native
population free from malarial infec-
tion, and that there will be left very
few malarial mosquitoes, and that
htese few malarial mosquitoes, not be-
ing able to bite any human being pre-
viously infected with malaria, will
be harmless. This is not an entirely
theoretical scheme. In Havana, yell
low fever was cared for in just the
way that We propose. TOR malaria.
The infected human being was taken
and placed under screening, and treat
ed until he was free from Infection,
and thus no yellow-feyer mosquito was
allowed to bite him during the inject
ed period and become herself infected.
At the same time, wholesale mosquito.
destruction was carried on.
At the end Of about eight months OF
this work: it was found that the num-;
ber of yeliow-fever mosquitoes had
been greatly decreased, and those that
we're left could find no human being
infected with yellow fever, whereby
they, the ayello~-feyer mosaniSaes,
might become infected, and thus con
yey il to other. human beings For
the past three years, Havana has been
free from yellow fever. An: unaccla-
mated msn can go to Havana. now,
and though he may. probably be bitten
a good many times by yellow-fever mos
nuitoes, these mosquitoes have had no
opportunity, in the past three years,
of biting a human being ,.iofected
with yellow fever, and, therefore, are
themselves entirely harmless. This
condition we hope to bring about In,
the villages along the canal route by
means similar to those adopted in
Havana. From Solving the Health
Problem at Panama. by Col. William
G. Gorgas, in the American Monthly
Review of Reviews for july.