The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-04-11

 OF MALARIA Dr. 0sler Pays Tribute
 to Italians. THEY LED IN THE WORK
First Discovered Mosquitoes Res
 possibility.
History ef the Disease Fiut Received with sksptieisn is Now Ac- ceptes Throughout The weriA.--He Revews the
 Work.
BIT \. e. PEARCE.


 who has been sojouring here, has writ ten an elaborate article on Malaria, In which he says:
 We owe much to the Italians for their contributions to our knowledge of the cause of malaria. Laveran's great discovery was promptly fathered by Marchiafawa and Cello and Golgl, and 1t was through their writings that we obtained the fullest details of the nature and structure of the mala- rial parasite. As an old student. of the disease and deeply interested in the practical problems of its prevention, one of my first visits in Rome was to the Laboratories of Pathology and of Hygiene to find out from the Direc- tors. Marchiafava and Ceili, the pro- sress of the battle. It was not enough to know the cAuse we had to know how 1t worked before effective meas- ures could be taken. and the demon atration by Ross of the transmission of the disease by the mosquito at once put malaria on the list of easily pre- ago the Italian Society for the study of Malaria was founded. and I was able to get a full report of the work
 In professor Cells iecture-room hangs the mortality chart of Italy for the past twenty years In 1887 mala- ria ranked with tuberiocsis, pneumo- mia, and the intestinal disorders of children as one of the great infections, killing In that year 21.os3 persons. The chart shows a gradual reduction In the death rate, and in 1908 only 4.- s71 persons died of the disease, and in 1907 4,1s0. This remarkable result has been very largely due to the sani- tary measures introduced by the Italian Society. It has long been known that malaria disappears .'spontaneous- ly. The Fen country is now healthy; parts of Canada. about Lakes Ontario and Erie, which were fomerly hot beds of the disease. are now free. This cannot be attributed altogether to cul- tiyation and drainage. I know places on the shores of the lakes just mem tioned In which the conditions to day are Identical with those which I re- member as a boy
 Funss and Marshes.
 The Desjardin Canal Marsh at the extreme western end of Lake Ontario was . well-known focus of the disease The marsh remains, the mosquitoes are these; but case of malaria Is almost as rare as In England. The disap- pearance is largely due to the free use of quinine. The settlers early recog- nized the important fact that malaria was 9 1koc&oS i69AG NQ toShAp 1h0 ~ became common practice to take Peru vian bark every spring and autumn for . year or two after an attack. This Is c point in prophylaxis which the work of the Italian Society has brought into prominepce. From the summary of the decenniai report just issued the following paragraphs are of interest:
 "The society has improved that the
 .a. A. troduced into practice the new me- fence of the habitation and the indi- viduaI from the bites of mosquitoes. This being a relatively expensive pro- cedure, the society has occupied itself chiefly with the Improvement of the anti-plasmodic prophylaxis-the ad- ministration of quinine.
 For this purpose 1t has promoted and defended legislation for the gra- tultous distribution of quinine to the poor and 10 all workers in malarial localities.
 Tn order to render possible the pro- ph ylaxis and to prolong the treatment. 1t has prepared the quinine In It's most agreeable forms--namely, that of com fits and chocolates, the latter contain ing tannate of auinine, which has lit- tie taste, and Is better tolerated by children.
 .'The results have been that since 1902. when the law on State duinine was promulgated, while the consump- ton of duinine has been yearly in- creasinR, the mortality from malaria has diminished from about 1e,oo0 to about 1000 yearly; and in the army. cummunes where the new laws have been better applied, the morbidity ma Iaria has greatly diminished.
 By these measures, and by means of the agricultural and agrarian trans formation of the land and colonization rather than by the destruction of mos quitoes Ga thing impossible to be done by us on a large scaie,) Italy may be freed from the scourge.
 Malaria illustrates stages through which so many of the great discover les in medicine have had to pass. At first a period of doubt--that the actual germ had been discovered seemed too good news, to be true, and for ten years or more there was much. and perhpas justinable, scepticism Except for the great help in diasonosis, we did not get much further until 1893, when the experiments of Ross demon strated the truth of the old suggestion of Lancisi (revived by King and by Manson.) that the dIsease was trans mitted by the mosquito. And now we are in the stage of prevention--the practical application of the knowledge of the cause and the method of its ac- ton. The anti-maiarial crusade inti- ated by Ross have had an extraordi- nary success, and nowhere more than in italy, in the hands of the National Society, to whose good work it is a pleasure to call attention.
 It would be hard to name any sim gle event of the nineteenth century of greater practical importance to the race than the discovery of Lavaran Tn the words of Colonel eGorgas. 1t has made the tropics habitable by white men. The Panama Canal zone is an astounding witness to the success of modern sanitary measures against ma laria. The monthly reports of Colo nei Gorgas give a death-rate (among nearly 5o.o00 wirk people) lower than that of any large city--lt has been as low as twelve per 1000; And let us not forget that humanity owes this triumph to the men who introduced experiment into medicine, to the Har- veya, the Hunters. the Majedies, and the Calude Bernards---the arch -vivi- sectors whom it has become fashionable to abuse.--and they have thus enabled us to wiring from nature what Harvey calls "her closet secretB."